


Past

by tashawrites



Series: Super Natural Fic Series : Youngjae's. [3]
Category: EXO, GOT7, Kpop - Fandom, exid
Genre: M/M, Multi, Vampires, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 15:31:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11694606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tashawrites/pseuds/tashawrites
Summary: Jinyoung has settled down on the quiet and quaint village of Manarola, to live what he believes to be the ideal lazy life with his live in lover. He has put all the trauma and drama of his past behind, in favour of artistic mornings, lazy afternoons, cosy evenings and passionate nights.  He shares his new life with the loyal, cute and unassuming toy boy Dowoon. Their life is ideal but that doesn't last long when his past comes rushing towards, pushing him into the future of uncertainty.





	1. Manarola

Jinyoung’s POV

 

Time was moving ever slowly today, everything that seemed to happen was something I had taken notice of. I had a 360 view of everything, I could see everything, I could hear everything, smell everything, and feel it all. There was a lot going on in the lazy town, it was small cogs in place that worked to put together quiet, idyllic look of the small Italian village.

Commonly considered as the most beautiful of the five villages which make up Italy's Cinque Terre region, Manarola is a stunning community of brightly-coloured homes cascading down the rocky slopes between the hills and the Mediterranean. Like most coastal towns in Italy, Manarola brags tasty local cuisine and a small beach. With partial to only one small local road, your Italian getaway is sure to be a peaceful one

It wasn’t the place that I ever thought would ever find myself, not when I was younger. Under the thumb of two demanding, emotionally and physically abusive parents. The Jinhae natives born and bred, had never planned lazy living in Italian villages for their son, no instead they had a holier and more innocent path set up for me. I could confirm that what I was living was far from innocent or holy, it was enough to make me the town’s social pariah, not that I mind that much.

 

The foreigner who kept to himself, the one who seemed suspicious. I never put enough effort or energy into trying to change those opinions, after all I only lived for myself. It was a selfish kind of life, but it was comfortable, affordable and rarely came with any conflicts. That was the main attraction, apart from neighbourhood disputes or a few domestic fights, there was rarely any trouble to occur, it was a soothing place to be.

Never had I imagined that I could ever consider such a place, but here I was after months. Sat on the patio of the home that I had purchased, sitting on a lounger, slathered in sun cream a precaution that was completely useless but for cosmetic purposes. For a person who lay out in the sun as often as I did, my skin was awfully pale, it was definitely in contrast to the dark olive skin tones that I was surrounded by.

Stretching out my arms working out the kinks that came with napping late into the afternoon. I was freshly stirred, instead of wasting the warmth of the sun, I would be spending the rest of the afternoon on the veranda of the villa that I was fortunate enough to be staying in.

Years and years of living had blessed me with the fortune of living in luxury. So when I came across the money and opportunity to stay in a place like this, of course I didn’t think twice about it. It was home for now, until my circumstances changed, until I was forced into moving. For now I would enjoy the luxury and I was clinging to the hope that it wouldn’t leave me. I was definitely content with artistic mornings, lazy afternoons, cozy evenings and passionate nights. 

My life hadn’t always been like this; it hadn’t always been ideal. Full of pressure from others to be what they saw for me, I always relented and became a weakling around others. I had spent so long in my life trying to please other around me, that I struggled with myself. I fought with myself to please them, and in the end I suffered a lot more than I ever needed to.

Right now, right here was the first time I could say that I had been living for myself. I didn’t follow anyone’s path, I lived my own life, and was comfortable in my own right. I was no longer the daddy’s boy who was on the holy path, and I wasn’t the closeted bottom anymore.

I close my eyes, I had been staring to close to the sun and all I could see were bright colours floating across my view. I let the colours swim into my head until they suddenly disappear, and briefly so does the sound of the ocean and the waves coming onto the shore. The chatter of my neighbours dies down and instead I hear the moaning of a male voice, this wasn’t the first time I ‘d heard it, recently I’d been hearing it.

It wasn’t the voice of anyone I recognised, as much fun as I had travelling the world, I still hadn’t racked up enough lovers to easily forget a voice like this. It was so soft, delicate, the moaning that I could hear, it was sending chills everywhere, the blood was flowing to the right places. 

“Hyung, that’s it there” the voice encourages breathily, it was like music to my ears. A melody I had not written and was hearing for the first time, instead of letting a moment like this pass. My hands wander slowly wander down from my nude torso, and slowly tease their way below the waist band of my board shorts. Even at moments like this, I liked to be teased.

This time I wouldn’t let this sex day dream pass me by without enjoying it, I reach down to grip my length. My other hand heads to my mouth, I lick and suck on my fingers. I slather myself, ready to open myself up right here and now. All I needed a few fingers and I would be ready for my mystery lover.

Part of these day dreams that I had been experiencing over the last few weeks was that I could never see who it was that I was making love to. Instead I could only hear him and feel him, I could feel a flutter of kisses make their way down neck. A hand slowly trails down it’s way down my torso and past the waist band of my trousers, and before long I can feel myself being slowly opened up. One finger works itself inside of me, and is soon followed by another and another.

A moan passes my lips, a satisfied moaning. Whoever was opening me up was doing such a great job, this felt good. It was slow and careful and before I get the chance to even notice the burning sensation or pain that came with this, I could feel light kisses being peppered slowly down my neck. I loved foreplay and this was certainly the kind that I enjoyed, it was slowly, sensuous and taunting almost.

“Jinyoung…” the voice moans melodically, whatever it was I doing to this person was working. I can feel myself pawing at something, instead of the two hands that I had on me opening myself and stroking myself. There were two other hands at work, and it felt like they were groping at a lovely fleshy and plump derriere. The more I felt at it, the more I wanted to grip.

The melodic sound of his moaning continues, I work my fingers inside of me as I get worked up. Suddenly my legs rise up, with my knees under my chin. I feel a soft fluttering of kisses on my face, before suddenly I feel like something is pushed inside of me. The feeling had me more full than I have ever felt, there was a warmth inside of me that was filling me up.

Shifting slightly, I take a deep breath allowing whoever it was to take the lead. Although it starts of hesitant, the kisses I receive tell me it wasn’t lack of experience that had my lover like this, but because he cared. He was waiting for me to adjust to his size, not that he was huge but that he was giving me the time I needed before he slowly starts rocking into me.

Despite this being a late afternoon sex dream, one which I was having on the private veranda of my property. Just because it was private didn’t mean that no one would see, but I didn’t have the gumption to care. No I had done far worse than masturbate on this lounger, but in broad daylight is where I was taking the risk. But I was so caught up in this feeling, I had never felt it before, why did I feel like there was something that had been missing and now I was being completed.

I had never had this feeling before, I had never felt like this with the few sexual partners I had been with. Even with the one I had loved, the one who had turned good and faithful child of god, into a cock hungry bottom. I had been weak for him, but not enough to separate myself from my friends, my family and everyone else. Although in the end, he had been the undoing of me, of all of that, he had forced me from the life that I had.

So while I still held some resentment, right now I was too hot and bothered to think about anything or anyone else. The mystery person continues to thrust into me, harder and faster the pace begins to pick up until a squeak escapes my lips. It felt so good, having a stranger inside of me. The pace and stroke of the thrusts was driving me crazy, I feel my legs wrap around the stranger’s waist pulling him closer and deeper inside of me.

The thrusting becomes harder and faster; it was sending me dizzy. I was sweating profusely, under this heat, being fucked like this was making me melt but I keep going. Thrusting harder and harder my lover keeps going, my hands find my length and I follow the rhythm of my lover’s strokes. I keep going harder and harder, until I finally reach my climax.

Reaching my peak my hips roll back just a few more times and soon I feel full. This has been the first time I had ever felt like this before, being alone in this dream stage, felt more special than anything I had ever experience.

Flash! Flash! Flash! Accompanied by the clicking of the shutter, I am bought out of my daze. I recognised that sound, it was the cue that reminded me that my dear live in lover was home. Home back from whatever little excursion he had taken for the day, whether it was taking pictures of the leaves, or even of the beachside and the waves.

Yoon Dowoon had an eye for everything that was beautiful, he had an eye for nature for the people that surrounded it or the things that couldn’t be seen. He had a special eye, one that flashes brightly and captures different pictures and moments. It was an eye that was often capturing our moments, and this wasn’t the first sexual moment it had captured.

“Hyung just stay like this, arch a little bit but keep your fingers inside” the younger playfully instructs me. So I oblige with a knowing smile, this wasn’t the first time that he had caught me masturbating in such a public place. Luckily the younger was very cool, calm and relaxed, he never let much faze him. He was certainly an ideal kind of person to be around.

So Dowoon gets his snaps, pictures I was sure he would treasure well. When he’s done, he reaches down to help me up and carries me back into the coolness of our villa. The younger takes me all the way to the shower, and even assists in cleaning me, all things I could do by myself but were admittedly more fun done with a partner.

Once our shower is finished and we have dressed for the evening, we settle down for the evening. It was a comforting, delicious and spicy food which the younger had so kindly prepared. Cooking wasn’t my domain, it was something I had never bothered to do, not when ordering food was an option that was still available.

Since I started living with the younger, I had become fond of these late night meals we’ve cooked up. There was a lasagna, the young boy had become better at preparing the meal after getting tips from our neighbours. The neighbours who were so fond of him, despite the fact it was obvious that we were in a man on man relationship they still treated him. They had all fallen for his amiable nature, whilst he reached out to people, I chose not to.

Even in our case, Dowoon and I seven months after our first meeting and as domesticated as we were, I couldn’t let him in. It was something I was aware of, but I wasn’t putting much effort into trying to change that. For now, we were comfortable the way that we were, and I liked my comfort.

“Hyung, is this delicious?” the younger checks up on me, the look on his eyes, even to this day he was desperate for my approval. Just like he had been in the club that we had met in, despite making the first move he watched me for his approval. Despite reach for my hand and pulling me onto the dance floor, and being really cute and spontaneous, he still watched me for some approval, had his actions been the right ones.

I smile back, thinking to the times that we had met. We had been in a club in Rome, I had stopped through the same club on a request of a friend, I was to go and save a young drainer in trouble. Something I had managed to do with ease, and without causing any unnecessary bloodshed, it was simple. After that I had no reason to stay, instead I chose to stay. 

The night was about letting go and relaxing, it was meant to be a fun night for me who was either hauled at home watching movies, or in a troupe of strong drainers killing other drainers. That night I wanted to get drunk, have anonymous sex and move on to the next city.

My one-night stand came in the form of the young and inexperienced Dowoon. He had been traveling the word to get away from his demanding family a story that I could relate to. His innocent charm had won me over, despite pulling me onto the dance floor, I could tell immediately that he was uncertain. I could tell that he wasn’t sure, and normally it would be something I could brush off and ignore. I could have walked away from him and let him do his awkward dance, but instead I pulled him close into me.

“It’s delicious Dowoonie” I smile encouraging the younger, but the memory of our first meeting still holds some weight to me. I was smiling because I was happy, this moment was comfortable yet I was worried that it wouldn’t last long. For months I had this feeling of dread into my stomach, something in me wasn’t sure how long my happiness could last. I was striving but a life without complications, but that didn’t stop me from being a difficult person myself. There were things that I had left, things that continued to worry me.

My concern continues when later that night in bed, the pair of us lie down in our comfortable bed, we watch TV. On the screen was a news report, it was covering the mysterious circumstances in which villagers in a third world nation were disappearing. The small country was in bits, confused as to what was happening? Was it bandits? Terrorists? Perverts? There was nothing that could explain what was going on and people were scared.

In the capital city of African nation Zambia, there were riots. Thousands of people had converged to try and find answer, from their government. The people of Lusaka wanted to know on behalf of their scared family members. The people were afraid, first it had started in Kasama and now Lusaka, the small nation was gripped with fear. Their government was a shambles, they had no explanation of what was going on in their nation.

The government couldn’t give the real explanation to their people, it was too dark and corrupt for their people to handle. After all, for the sake of money, they had risked the lives of many and used them as lab rats.

However, an experiment lead by one of the world’s wealthiest nations had thrown money at its government and they had greedily accepted it without even a thought to the consequences, and now the disappearance of dozens had turned into a few thousand. Of course the people were confused, upset and scared especially when their stubborn nation refused to acknowledge any of it happening.

My mind was taken back to the Kasama attacks years ago, my stomach lurches at the thought. Scared families, babies crying and carnage and bloodshed. It was one of the worst sights I had ever seen, the vision still lingered in my mind. Any kind of trauma I had suffered before had paled in comparison to what the people of the small villages had to suffer. Around that time, it felt like part of me had died inside, and it was a part of me that had failed to come back. The fact that this was still happening, that it was getting worse, I couldn’t help but feel partly responsible still.

“Let’s not watch this” Dowoon reaches over me, and taking the remote control, he switches off the television. “It’s too depressing” Dowoon cutely pouts, the younger didn’t like my habit of watching the news before I went to sleep. “Let’s think only sweet thoughts, okay hyung?” the younger bats his eyelashes cutely, before leaning into kiss me. I grin unable to resist kissing him, I pull him closer. His lips press on mine, they were prettiest and soft lips that I had ever felt, they tasted sweetly. These were the nights that I enjoyed, full of fun and passion, two things I had been without for so long.

That night is peaceful like most that I had spent with Dowoon, lying in the arms of the broad shouldered younger. I was comfortable in his arms, comfortable enough it seems to have this nightmare, it was something that still popped up, although years ago it was something that constantly haunted me.

Every night for four years straight I dreamt of a monster, a real life monster of whom I knew of. Except that monster had not always been a monster to me. No instead he was someone that I had foolishly fallen in love with, my first love and first heartbreak. Those dreams had been more sporadic over the last few years, tonight just happened to be the night for this dream.

I was taken back to Jinhae, to see the cherry blossoms with my lover. My first heartbreak, the most awful and dark memory. It hadn’t started out that way, I had been called out by the person that I loved the most. We were to have a sweet and romantic night out, whilst everyone was out, we would make the most of our night together.

“Please don’t do this!” I try to yell out, my voice was strained from the hand around my neck. My face was heating up, I was turning red and I was struggling for some air, I was so close to death right and all at the hands of the person that I had fallen in love with. “Why not Jinyoung?, what the hell is keeping us here? TELL ME!” I try to reply, but it was difficult to do so when all my breath was being stolen from me.

Through the faded florescent colours, I could see patches of my lover’s angry face, tears were running down his face and even now I couldn’t get angry. He looked so weak and hurt and I had caused that, I had been the one to break his heart. He was fragile already, the shit he had been going through with is parents, they didn’t accept him for who he was.

Jaebum hadn’t been accepted by his biological father and his mother had spent all of his life chasing a man who didn’t want him. She was chasing a man who would bring her the love and stability that she always craved, and in that quest she forgot about her child. Although she did what she could to provide for him, she still left her son feeling lonely, bitter and unwanted.

For so long, I had tried to comfort him, to care for him and show him that he was worthy of love. I had delivered so many kisses, hugs, touches and words of affection, I had done my best to at least make him sure of it. For a while it seemed like he had believed it, he was better with my love. He was warmer, sweeter, braver, with my love he became someone much better.

However, years had passed. We had been together years, hidden from others. From our very first nervous kiss in the cloakroom of the school gym, to us circling around each other, trying to figure out each other’s feelings. To eventually confessing those feelings and sneaking around in the shadows, just so that we could spend the time together.

Im Jaebum was the love of my life, even as he was choking the life out of me, my heart still beat for him. I still loved him so much that it hurt, and at that time I hadn’t been brave enough for the both of us. If only I could throw away my family and my loved ones, I would have said yes.

When the love of my life had asked for us to throw it all away, to leave my family and friends behind. I should have been brave and said yes, but I couldn’t. I was weak and afraid, but looking at him, that wasn’t the only reason why I was saying no. When I looked at him, it was Jaebum that I was looking at, it didn’t feel like I was looking at someone that I recognised, he was a total stranger.

“Just say YES Jinyoung, and all of this won’t have to happen” Jaebum finally let’s go of his grip. I gasp for the little bit of air my lungs could pull in at a time, I choke and I splutter until I can finally breath. Crouching down to the ground, I watch on as my lover watches me, he looked conflicted, all the hurt that I had tried to rid myself of was showing on his face again.

Had I hurt him? To this degree? Had I made him as twisted as he looked right now? There was evil in his eyes, he looked cold and filled with hatred. I hadn’t seen him in a week and he had changed so much, he looked like he had aged. Something terrible had happened to him, was it just me excusing my own behaviour? Was me being weak causing this change in him?

“If you can’t make the choice that we need to, then I will make you” Jaebum warns, before kicking me down to the floor. Before I can even protest, the kicking continues, it was hard, fast and painful. I want to beg him to stop, I want to really to shout out to him to stop, that I wasn’t ready but in the future I could be ready but I couldn’t. This Jaebum wasn’t the one who had been patient around me for years, no this was a desperate maniac.

Blood splatters the cherry blossoms that had fallen to the ground and soon I become sure, that this wasn’t the Jaebum that I knew. He had never lifted a finger against me, to him I was the most precious person in his life, he wasn’t in his right mind. So I cling to him, grabbing his leg, he stops kicking me, I Can hear him panting to catch his breath.

“You smell so good Jinyoung” Jaebum slowly crouches down next to him. The look in his eye, it was like an animal had taken over him, his eyes were bulging out of his eyes. He had gone crazy, like an animal, back then it had been really quite confusing. But now I knew that Jaebum was a drainer, he was a brand new drainer, which meant he was blood thirsty.

He didn’t watch me the same anymore, he watched me as if was something delicious that he was going to eat. If only it had been that way, if only he had sucked me dry of all my blood, but it didn’t happen that way. It was slower and more agonising, something I could never wish even on my worst enemy.

"Let’s runaway to Sao Paulo” stood above my blood body. I laughed it off but he was serious, even in this moment he was still making the same suggestion. “Come on Jinyoung, we can do it. We can leave our lives and parents behind and be happy” the look in his eyes, he seemed so desperate but I don’t reply in the way that he would want of me. I simply shook my head, but that was enough to enrage Jaebum.

Reaching for my arm forcefully, he pulls me up by my collar. “If I was a woman would you come with me!!" he raises his voice, he looked bug eyed. "If I was the church, would this be an easier choice for you?” full of rage, the Jae that I loved was no longer in his eyes, the snarl in his teeth was really starting to creep me out.

“Son of a bitch!” he flew into a rage and gripped me down, you're mine Jinyoung and no one else's!!" those words send a shiver down my spine. I tried to free myself but I was so weak, he threw me again the wall, it hurt a disorientated me. He gripped me to the wall and pulled down my trousers, he had moved so quickly. “You're mine Jinyoung” he kept repeating, but he doesn’t listen no matter how many times I tell him to stop.

Moving quick he doesn’t give me a chance to scream for help. He covers my mouth and pinned me down he felt like the greatest weight that pinned me down. Nudging my legs apart, he had reached for his length and shoved himself inside of me. That night my boyfriend of four years he had raped me. 

I couldn't fight him off, he had always been physically stronger than me. But today he was on a much higher level, I immobile as he defiled me, as he had his way with me. He had forced himself into me and it seemed he was doing it to break me down, if I was weak then I could be his but even after suffering such a trauma, I wasn’t weak.

Despite all he had done, I wasn’t going to give in. “I’m not yours” when I told him I would never want him, he was angered. I was distraught at what had happened but I wasn't weak and I wouldn't be forced into loving him, even if he raped me a million times. All brave words. In reality, if he had apologised, I might have forgiven him. If he had spoken up and told me what was going on, then I might have spoken up.

Jaebum didn’t seem to speak up, he was still mad at me, despite him being the one who had done me wrong he was angry. Furious that I hadn't submitted to him, he was possessed and so he continued his attack. He pinned me down continued and this time round he bit into me, he bit and clamped down.

It was unlike any pain I had experienced, powerless I watched as someone I had trusted and loved attacked me again. I didn't understand the full extent of what he was doing, in fact I had simply resigned myself to death that night. But ever since I have stayed alive, I had regretted it, I had regretted the life that had followed me since. Every day since that attack I had been running, running away from Jaebum.

Even though Seul Ong hyung had told me that Jaebum had died in a tussle between the two of us, I for some reason had never believed it. Seul Ong had been an honest and kind person, but something in me, fear maybe didn’t trust him and his words. So when he had suggested that I travel across the world, I had rushed away.

Nonetheless, the harder I tried to run away from the past the more futile it began to feel. I know that as I wake up covered in sweat, panting hard and heavy. It was in the middle of the night and there sat up watching me was Dowoon, the dawn light shows through the curtains nearby.

“Hyung, are you okay?” the younger looks down to check up on me, he watches me. “You were having a nightmare again?” I nod my head, but I quickly sit up to reassure him. That I was fine, it was just an unpleasant memory and that we were here together having fun.

“You make me worry all the time hyung” I smile grateful that I elicited that type of reaction from him. That someone cared for me, it had been a while and it was the first time that someone seemed to care about me without needing or wanting something from me. I reach over and stroke through his hair, I pull in him into a hug until he seems to calm down.

While we’re there, we talk about all the things we would do for the day. Dowoon would be going out of the village for a day, he had promised a local that he would be their photographer for their wedding. So I say a sweet goodbye with him, a nice little romp in the sheets before sending him off.

“Oh I had been waiting for so long for that dope to leave!” a familiar voice rings out into the villa. It was a female voice; it had been so long since I had heard the annoying perky voice. Immediately my ears can tell who it belongs to, and I had hoped that it would be a long, long time before I saw this person again.

“Oppa its been a while!” she greets me, making her way into the kitchen. She had somehow snuck into my place and was now making herself comfortable, sat on kitchen counter she watches me with bright innocent eyes. She bounces around giddily, she was cute and youthful as ever.

“It’s been so long oppa!” Hyerin greets me, her bright teeth her sparkling and her wide eyes taking me in. “This set up is quite cush isn’t it?” Hyerin looks around, she swings her legs playfully. Despite her young looks, the façade of being mischievous hid a lot to be suspicious about.

“What do you want?” I drop the formalities seeing as she had as well. I didn’t dislike her, but I didn’t like what she reminded me of. The magical fuckery that we have been through, I didn’t want to or need to be pulled back into that world. But seeing her around, it seemed like I wouldn’t be given the choice that I wanted.

“We need you again” I shake my head in reply. “No”. I wasn’t interested in helping anyone, not the Le Protezioni, not any other organisation. I had been pulled into this fuckery before and barely got out alive, for years I had followed the path that was set for me. I followed the path that the Le Protezioni had set for me, killing those who they saw fit for me to kill. I wasn’t anything special to them, all that I was a paid assassin.

 

“Inguk oppa needs your help” I pause. There was a name that I hadn’t heard in a while, it had been years, our last meeting had been quite awkward. He had caught me in a moment, and I hadn’t seen him since. He had been someone I had known since I was very younger, he had been one of the few people who understood me. So when he found out about my change, he had no judged me. Being around him had allowed me to be the person that I had wanted to be.

Our paths diverged once again and I hadn’t been able to see him in a while, but now he wanted to see me. How she knew In Guk I wasn’t sure, but Inguk hyung was someone that I could really trust. “Come with me” Hyerin explains that In Guk was close, he was in town and he wanted to meet with me. When I ask what she had been doing there, she reveals that she had been nosy and wanted to see the life that I was living.

“This is a nice life, but you know very well it’s not the life that you’re destined for, and neither is that cutie” Hyerin taps her head knowingly. Her powers were frustrating and spot on, I knew better but I didn’t want to trust her, nor did I want to let go of the life that I enjoyed. Even so, to find the hyung that I trusted the most, I followed the little floaty fair.

The little blonde fair floats towards the nearest church in the village, San Gaetano. It was a church that I had passed many times by but I had never gone inside. Part of me, a silly part of me felt like I would melt were I to step foot inside of the place. With all the sins that I had committed, it should really be the last person for a sinner like me, yet here I was on.

“It’s been so long” the handsome Seo Inguk smiles greeting me. The look in his eyes, he seemed genuinely happy to see me. It had been almost three years since I had last seen the elder, he had caught me at the darkest time in my life. Covered in blood, the elder had caught me in the act. He had caught me feasting on several blood vessels, although they had willingly offered themselves, the picture itself was slightly sordid.

Surprisingly the elder hadn’t been shocked, not even one bit. He had seen the younger cousin of his close friend sucking the blood out of many men, in what looked like a filthy orgy, yet he never judged me. He could never judge me, even though he followed a holier path. The path that my parents had intended for me, what they had wanted for me and in the few letters I received from my brother, it was a path they still wanted me to follow.

“Did you miss me?” the elder pulls me into a warm hug. A hug that I used to desire so much, the desire that first made me aware that I wasn’t like normal boys. The elder had seen me grow and treated me like a sibling of his own, coaching me through all my feelings of worry and anxiety. I was glad that he was here, but seeing him again was stirring up old feelings that I had wanted to keep in the past.

He quickly leads me into the back of the church, Inguk had been accepted with open arms by the community. As a man if god he was trusted and even given a room to stay in while he was there. We wouldn’t be visiting that room, but for now we would sit on the back porch of the church.

Inguk hyung brings up my cousin, growing up the two had been close and had stayed that way despite their different paths. “Sungjin misses you, he wants the kids to meet their uncle” he asks if I’ll ever return to Jinhae. But the way that I was feeling right now, the answer was a definite no. I didn’t think I could be near my family, not when I was like this.

“You know it’s not like that. Your cousin still cares about you” and it’s because he did that I couldn’t be around him. There was so much trouble that I wasn’t confident that I had left behind, I would not put him at risk. Not when he had a family of his own that he needed to protect.

“There is trouble and I need your help” Inguk explains that there were some enemies that we needed to take care of. “Paulo and Anastacia, there’s a lot of trouble they’re cause and well… you know them well and we need your help” Inguk reveals what had been happening while I was gone.

During my life’s lowest moment, I met the pair. The strong drainers Anastasia Cross and her partner of many decades Paulo Costa, they were kind and free beings. They weren’t in a covenant, but they had a small group of drainers who they travelled with. They functioned as a family, my time spent with them was a turnaround in my life of darkness.

They had been so bright warm and supportive. My short time with time them had pulled me out of a darkness that I had clouded me for years. I was a different person because of the warmth, kindness and perspective they had shown me but now Inguk was trying to tell me they were villains. They were running rampant around Europe, killing mercilessly anyone that got in their path, that’s not something that I could easily reconcile with.

“You need to help us and save the lives of many” Inguk reveals that this was something only I could do. Those words I had not heard in a while and they were never as black and white as they looked. Being part of the Le Protezioni in the past had jaded me, and if I was to do it again, I knew it wouldn’t be as easy as I wanted it to be.

 

“Come to the capital city with me, when we’re there I’ll let you know the plan” Inguk explains, he reaches over and fondly cards through my hair. Watching the elder was like being taken in a time machine, I was being taken back in time, to a place where I might not necessarily have been myself but I had been happy and normal.

“You’re going to Rome?!” Dowoon exclaims as we make our way through the village. We had met up for dinner and now we were making our way back home and I had revealed my sudden trip to the capital to him. Of course I wasn’t going to tell him the truth, that was something he didn’t need to confused himself with. No, I had done too much and acted foolishly.

I lie and say that a hyung of mine had just arrived into town but he would be going to Rome again and he asked to come and join him. “A hyung?” with a raised eyebrow Dowoon watches me from his view with a cute little pout across his face. He looked really adorable when he was jealous, how much I could taunt and tease him about how Inguk had been my first crush.

Years had passed and my crush had faded, but I still remembered the feeling. So I could just Dowoon know those feelings if I wanted to see him jealous for the rest of the night, then that’s all I had to do. Tell stories embellish a little, but very rarely did I speak on the past. Not with Dowoon, he didn’t know much about me apart from the fact I was from Jinhae.

According to what I had told him, I had left my home and my family behind after they had tried to push me into priesthood, the drama of that story had been enough for Dowoon not to ask any more about it. He seemed to trust me and that I would tell what needed to be said.

“Well this would be good” Dowoon speaks up, he reveals that he had been planning to go to Berlin for a couple of weeks now. Instead of him waiting in Manarola for me, he would go to Berlin and see some old friends and when we were done with our business, we would return back home.

“Don’t cheat on me” Dowoon warns and I chuckle in response, teasing the younger. Even though we lived together, we had never made our relationship official. Not that I was really looking to be with anyone else, I just liked knowing that he only seemed to have eyes for me, the misfit of the island. Knowing he would be abroad also makes me feel less worried, for a while I knew that I would be causing trouble, so it would be great if Dowoon was far from that.

“I mean it hyung, don’t go falling for some handsome top okay?” I laugh as the younger continues on his adorable jealousy. I would definitely reward him well tonight, for being the person who could constantly make me laugh and wipe away any stress that I felt.

A/N. Hey guys! Welcome to another one! Whooo! This fic is hopefully going to be short, and just an arc that leads to the main fic but keep in mind I said my other prequel First would be just 8 chapters and that’s now 20 chapters and my first prequel Stay With Me was technically supposed to be a one-shot and well… it’s like a 22 shot lmao. So bear with me if this spirals out of control.


	2. Berlin

Dowoon’s POV.

 

“Hyung, you’re being far too clingy” I complain. We hadn’t been in this train carriage more than five minutes before, my favourite hyung was showering me in far too much affection. “Dowoonie it’s cold” Kang Younghyun pulls me into his embrace. We were sharing a train carriage to Berlin, and it was really cold outside. The snow had dropped blanketing most of west Germany, it was stark in contrast to the weather that I had experienced in Manarola. The warm, pleasant and comfortable embrace of older lover, who at this point I had been separated from no longer than 6 hours. Yet I missed him, but at least I hadn’t left him alone.

The elder had suddenly announced a mysterious visit to Rome, to meet up with an old family friend. Jinyoung and I had known each other some time, and during that time he had never spoken of family or friends, not in real detail. They were just people he had explained that he was not close with, that he had cut off all ties with everyone from the past, so suddenly for him to have an old friend pop up from nowhere.

 

“It’s strange…” I jolt up into sitting position as I feel myself get poked in the side. I was bought out of my thoughts suddenly, my ribs felt completely sore and when I look up on top of me, I see Younghyun hyung straddling me. “You’re acting strange” , with knotted eyebrows the elder watches me closely, I swat him away and try to sit up but I’m pushed back down. “There we go, that’s my Dowoon, I love when you fight” my old friend teases. The elder was dressed up as warmly as I had, in a parker coat, large woolly scarf, skinny jeans and boots. He looked like a runway model, with his handsome striking face he fit that kind of look.

Despite his chic appearance, he was very fluffy and cute on the inside. He often showed this side with me, showering me with lots of affection and attention. We had both attended the same boarding school as kids, the elder had seen me as vulnerable and had decided to take care of me through out. He had been able to see me for I truly was from the beginning, he didn’t judge me through it all and supported me. We had grown close.

“When your precious hyung has come when you called, you should pay more attention” Younghyun says with a pout. I laugh as I always did when I was around the elder, he had been responsible for a lot of the happy times that we had shared together for a long time. So when the elder invited me to come to Berlin with him, with my boyfriend away for the week, I jumped at the offer. So here we were, fooling around in this carriage.

Not fooling around in the sexual sense, no we hadn’t done that in a long while. We hadn’t gone far in a while, every time we met it was usually kissing and heavy petting but now he was happy and single fucking whomever and I was hung up on an elusive guy. I was always stepping around any issues when it came to him, because I was so desperate to hold onto him.

“Hey! I’m right here!” the elder slaps me on the forehead repeatedly, before trapping me in between my legs. “Pay attention to me” Younghyun leans in to kiss me on the lips, it’s a soft peck and happens so quickly and flusters me. Although the kiss felt good, I was determined to stay faithful to the man that I was not committed to. When it came down to it, Jinyoung had never proclaimed his feelings for me and I was too scared to declare mine.

“Are you thinking about another guy, while I’m around?” Younghyun literally ribs and teases me. The look on his face, the fondness he had always had for me was still worn across his handsome face. “We have many things to do when we get into town, but while we’re here, hyung wants to catch up” Younghyun expresses his desire to catch but I could tell he just needed to hear what I was up to, and if I was okay.

Younghyun knew my parents, he knew my whole family and I had no doubt that he would go back to report them. Not to gossip, but just to let them know that I was fine which I was. However I wouldn’t be telling him much, I would tell Younghyun that I was fine and was finding myself on the beautiful island that I was settling on and I would leave it at that.

“So you’re going to keep ignoring your parents?” I nod my head without hesitation. I wanted to avoid my parents and their overwhelming love for me. The love that had caused them to send me to some bum fuck town in America to get rid of the gay, they had forced me into a retreat in which they attempted to brain wash me. They had attempted to make me change who I was, they didn’t accept who I was, yet they wanted me to accept them in turn, it was unfair.

Desperate to mould me into their perfect son, my parents wanted to clean up my image and had gone to those desperate lengths. They had wanted me to take over their empire, I was their only child and that came with a lot of responsibilities. Those responsibilities I had always been willing to take up, I would have sacrificed so much but not who I really was.

My parents didn’t accept me for who I was, they mentally messed with me and I had run away as fast as I could. Even though they had tried to reach out to me many times, I was still very apprehensive and wary of them. They could write all they wanted, but it didn’t mean that they would suddenly start to accept me.

Tap, tap, tap. Younghyun taps me on the forehead, he smiles and teases me. “You look so cute on the outside, yet you’re so intense, it’s sexy” Younghyun leans in to bite and nibble at my ear. He hadn’t had anything to drink earlier whilst I was with him, but as clingy as he was being right now, it made me wonder that maybe he had.

“Dowoonie, hyung missed you like crazy” the elder continues, he leans in to kiss me. His lips on mine, they were soft, sweet and pleasant. Lost in the past memories that we had once shared, I kiss back the elder. Just because I liked someone didn’t make me human, when something felt good it was a lot harder to resist. So for a few minutes I let myself go, I let the elder’s hands wander around until they find themselves onto my lap.

The elder rubs my crotch, even though we had our own separate closed off carriage, the train’s staff could still walk in on us. Straddling me, the elder continues to nip, tuck and suck on my lips before kissing me fully. The elder hums out in pleasure as he continues to kiss, despite how good it felt, there was something a little off about this all.

When I push away slowly, I watch the elder on top of me. Younghyun sat straddled on top of me, watches me, a grin on his face but the look in his eyes. He was worried about something, and I could tell that he was worried about something, so I just sit and wait for him to speak up. “Are you mostly topping or would you ever let me?” the elder asks as he laughs, but I knew he was dead serious, the look in his eyes said so.

An hour later, we finally get to Berlin the wind hits us hard, the city was so cold, it had been a while since I had last visited and nothing had changed. It was quite peaceful; unlike the last time I had visited the city. It had simply been a weekend trip, but whilst I had been there, there had been a large riot. It had started off as a peaceful protest from the people of Germany who wanted to know why so many of their people were disappearing.

The protests mirrored a lot of what was happening in Lusaka right now, watching the news recently had me feeling all sorts of sad. No matter how crappy I felt my life was, it paled in comparison to the pain and agony others were going through. In Berlin and in Lusaka, the whole world was going to shit and no one seemed to know that more than my live-in beaux.

As we watched the news together, I could see something in his eyes. There was something about what he had seen on the news that had affected him. It was like he had been personally affected, he had that look in his eyes when I asked him about his past. Like when I asked him about his first love, the way he tried suppressing his pain. It was a pain I had decided that I wanted so desperately to get rid of

Months have passed and I was still trying to figure out how I could do it. Inviting him to live in the sleepy village of Manarola had been something that I had done with the intention of getting his guard down. I don’t know why I was so desperate to be with him, why I needed to fix him. I could tell that he was broken from the very first time that we had met and I just wanted to know why so I could put him back together again.

I couldn’t do that all the way in Berlin, but following him all the way to Rome wouldn’t have helped me at all. No in fact I had come all the way to Berlin to prove that I wasn’t clingy or dependant, I needed Jinyoung to miss me and to want me around. If he wanted me around, he would have to miss me and realise that I was someone that he couldn’t do without it.

Honestly I was off to a terrible start, we had been separated no more than 8 hours, I had arrived in Berlin and not yet had I received a call from him. There was not even a text from the elder, no smoke signal. I was conflicted between being irritated by the aloof elder, and feeling guilty for kissing my oldest friend on the train carriage. I wasn’t committed to him, but it still had those conflicted feelings, and it was irritating.

When we reach Berlin, we head over to the hotel that Younghyun had booked for us. It was quite upscale and expensive; it didn’t feel like a normal occasion but I was curious what it was about. Younghyun berates me for being so suspicious, before helping me check into the hotel. I decline the elder’s request to share a bedroom, with the little money that I did have, I book a hotel room for myself. “You don’t trust me?” the elder pretends to be hurt all the way upstairs to our rooms, but I do my best to ignore it all. For now I had more important things to worry about, like calling my non boyfriend up.

Sadly I had been the first one to cave into the elder, I had called the elder the second I shut my hotel room. I didn’t make any further steps forward, not until I can call the one who I obsessed about so much. It takes a while for him to answer, the few minutes that I have to wait are a little torturous. What if he was ass up in the air getting penetrated by the handsome elder that I had left him with? Was he a good lover? Is that why Jinyoung had rushed over to Rome with him? For a hot steamy-

“Dowoonie, it’s you!” the elder finally answers, he didn’t sound tired or physically worked out from being fucked so that was a relief. Unless they hadn’t gotten to that part, Jinyoung loved foreplay so much that it could take them a long time before they even got to that point. “Did you miss hyung?” Jinyoung sounded upbeat, cute, and happy. Why did he sound happy when I wasn’t around? Was it because of his cousin’s friend? What kind of relationship did they have? I had managed to get a peak of the elder before heading off for a taxi.

Jinyoung had introduced me to the attractive elder, there was something elusive about Seo Inguk. He was mysterious and cool and I…wasn’t. “Have fun with your hyung” Jinyoung wishes before even getting a reply from me, he hangs up. Totally frustrating me, not once had he even asked about Younghyun, how long we had known each other and what our relationship was. Not questions someone who was jealous would ask, someone who cared. Why was I the only one who cared?

I don’t get to sulk for very long before Younghyun pulls me out, well he knocks on my door and calls my name repeatedly until I am forced out of my room. He was the only person who knew how to make me feel embarrassed without failure. Still he had planned this trip and it would be rude of me to stay in my room mooning over my semi boyfriend.

Our first port of call for the night is dinner with an old friend. Younghyun didn’t inform me which friend until we were making our way towards him in the upscale restaurant, and all with good reason. We were pretty much strangers again, but in the past we had a close relationship. Kim Wonpil the first person I had lost my virginity to.

Now he was in the restaurant with us, completely friendly, chipper and smiley. Talking about old times as if we had always simply just been friends and that there hadn’t more. Now he sat in front me of as the married man who was happy, and in wedded bliss. At some point I can’t help but grin as he was chatting about the love of his life and how he had met her.

When I looked at him in the eyes, he looked to be genuine, that he meant it all. There were closet cases that I had come across, but he seemed to be someone who be genuinely in love with this woman. Still it was a little bizarre, as he talked to me, it was like he was acting that there had been nothing between us at all and everyone in the room knew differently.

Still I grin and bear it and wish him a happy future, I meant it after all. I did want for him to have a happy future and to be happy, I wanted it for him, and for myself. “So are you seeing anyone Dowoonie?” Wonpil checks up on me, he watches me with genuine curiousity. In the past that had been the question he had asked as a jealous ex, but he suddenly developed amnesia over the fact that we had once been in a relationship.

“Yes, he’s someone that I like well” thus far I hadn’t spoken up about my relationship, not even with Younghyun so the elders both watch me with intrigue. I answer the questions, even though I had told myself that I wouldn’t be so open and truthful. But here I was, spurred on by my ex and his crappy perfect life, I was trying to show off. Of course I mix and match the truth with lies, I tell him that Jinyoung was from a rich family and because of their disapproval he had been exiled to Europe and that’s how we met.

“So you’re with a trust fund guy?” Wonpil teases, flicker of jealous worn across his face. “Does he treat you well? Dinners, hotels all that good stuff?” Wonpil continues, and Younghyun watches on amused to see the new reaction from our mutual friend. “The sex is spectacular” I speak out gaining a loud reaction from Younghyun, he laughs it off amused.

Wonpil’s reaction is a little dark, all the happiness and joy he had felt earlier on had suddenly disappeared. I don’t know why he felt that way if I was being honest, he was never all that committed to our relationship when we were together. He was in it for the sex, but even still the jealousy was there, he had always been quite the jealous personality. “So yes, I’m happy” I comment, hoping to move on the conversation, but it seemed that I had worked up Wonpil.

“Are you going to introduce him to your parents?” Wonpil knew my parents, he had them a few times, but only as my roommate when my family came to visit. Other than that Wonpil had never showed any interest in my family, and why would he, he was just fucking me. So him bringing up my family up, it simply reeked of his jealousy. He had always been the jealous type, he didn’t like me with anyone else, but he didn’t want to be with me.

“If he’s not meeting with his family, what makes you think he’ll introduce his boyfriend to them?” Younghyun teases Wonpil. Meanwhile I grin as I watch Wonpil pout, I had been so obsessed with him and making care about me, now when I thought about it, my feelings for him were juvenile.

Younghyun leaves the pair of us when he receives a sudden and quite mysterious call. Wonpil doesn’t know what it’s about, but doesn’t seem to care. Now that I had worked up his jealousy, he didn’t seem able to focus on anything but me and trying to seduce me. His hand finds my thigh, and the look in his eyes, it was same old mischievous look I had fallen for.

“Do you know why I came to Berlin?” Wonpil starts up his act again, I knew it well. When he wanted me, when he wanted seduce me, he always did this when he got bored with one of his flings or girlfriends. Wonpil would come crawling back to me, and like a fool I always felt like it.

He liked doing his seduction technique in public places, although he would discreet about it, he liked the dangerous element of being caught. Being caught by his friends, by his family or even the staff of whatever establishment we happened to visit. He liked doing it then because he wanted to unnerve me, to get me all hot and bothered in a public place and to hold the control over me that he lusted for.

Nevertheless, things were different, I wasn’t love struck for the elder anymore. The feelings that I had once had for him had faded, I wouldn’t and couldn’t risk my relationship with Jinyoung to fall back into a married man. I knew better than that, so I back away from the elder. My act of rejection seems to put Wonpil in a bitter mood, did he really think that he held me twisted around his finger?

“Is it like that?” Wonpil asks bitterly, I nod my head in reply. “Congratulations Dowoonie, you found the bottom of your dreams” comments sourly before taking a sip of his wine. His childish pouting was really off putting, enough to make me relieved that I had rejected him. “Congratulations on your happy marriage hyung” this time I don’t mean it, I say it with a sarcastic tone. Wonpil frowns in reply, but continues on to down the drink and there is tense and uncomfortable atmosphere between the two of us until Younghyun joins the both of.

After the awkward dinner with my semi closeted ex, Younghyun and I head off to the hotel. We were going to rest for the night and do a littles sight-seeing the day after, so before I go to sleep, I give my semi boyfriend a call to check up on him. Unfortunately, the other doesn’t answer, it sends me down the spiral of jealousy once again.

Why wasn’t he answering my calls? My mind goes wild, I start to picture a bunch of passionate scenes that Jinyoung and his cousin’s friend could be involved in. What was he doing that had taken away his attention? Frustrated with my live in lover’s continued aloofness, I stubbornly hold back the urge to call him and try to get to sleep sooner.

There is a brief time for me to get in some peace, but that doesn’t last long as Younghyun comes banging on my door. My attempt to ignore him fails as he starts to reveal my most embarrassing moments and secrets to those in the hallway. I get up and let him in my room, he shrugs off my attempt to berate him for his behaviour. Instead the elder grinning from ear to ear, his cute and childish smile warms my heart a little bit.

Younghyun giggles as he rushes jumping bed, despite my protests, the elder had already made himself comfortable lying in my bed. Reluctantly I join the elder knowing that he wasn’t going to leave no matter how many times I told him to leave. It’s not long before the elder is making trouble, he reaches for my phone, it’s not long before he’s quickly writing something on my phone, he reveals that he was sending a text over to Jinyoung.

Panicked I try to wrestle with him and see what he had texted him. When he hands over the phone, I check the sent box to see what he had sent. I groan as I read the text, I repeatedly smack the elder who seemed to be finding this all amusing, I was mortified.

Me: I’m with my precious hyung in bed, I might get fucked by him. What do you think?

“Hey hyung!” I protest but Younghyun doesn’t seem to see what he has done as a problem. “chill Dowoonie, if he’s a man that likes you, he’ll be calling you in five, four…” the elder continues his countdown and right on the dot of zero, my phone suddenly rings the phone.

Without hesitation I go to answer the phone but am surprised to see it’s just a text message. Opening up the message, what I see isn’t what I had hoped for from the elder. It’s thoroughly disappointing, and it takes me a little while for me to catch up. Younghyun becomes concerned about my silence as he reaches for my phone, he looks down at the text. Before putting down my phone, he leans in to kiss me on the lips.

Instead of hesitating, I lean in to kiss the elder. Younghyun cups my face and separates my lips with his, whilst he slips his tongue of my mouth. The kiss becomes more passionate, it was like old times, we had never had a romantic connection. But our friendship had never been purely platonic, so we had found ourselves in moments like this before and especially when I was feeling vulnerable, my reaction to the text, it was immature but this felt good. If Younghyun was leading this, then I wouldn’t stop this.

Before long, the both of us are back into hold habits. The elder was above me, behind me, inside of me. Being close to him, having his undivided attention was something different. It felt like Younghyun and I had some stuff that we needed to work out through sex. I had sworn that I wouldn’t fuck him again, in order to stop things from getting muddled up in our relationship, I wanted us to stay just friends, but here I was.

“Do what feels god for you” the tweet plays over and over as Younghyun and lie in bed. We were cuddled up after our work out and I was regretting it a little bit, we shouldn’t keep overstepping like this. We needed to keep our friendship balance, and so I finally speak up. I tell my friend what was really going on my life, and not hiding the truth.

I spill the beans on how insecure the elder was making me feel, how scared I was losing Jinyoung but sadly I didn’t even have him. Younghyun strokes me through my hair as he patiently listens. He wasn’t judging me or lecturing me, he didn’t pity me either. “Clinging on isn’t a bad thing, not if at some point it makes you happy” Younghyun tells me to be honest, and if it doesn’t work out for me, then at least I tried and I was honest.

The conversation turns to Younghyun and his recent situation, he speaks up about how he is feeling. We talk about his first love, Jaehyung, they were in contact again. “I know he’s not the one that I’ll end up with but. It’s nice talking to him again” Younghyun explains that recently studying and working at his family’s company was getting on top of him. So to speaking to Jaehyung seemed to be helping relax him, they shared a deep relationship.

So when I ask the elder why he isn’t pursuing it more, why he can’t just cut off his family for the one he loves Younghyun chuckles. “Is it that easy?” he asks, and I nod my head without hesitation. If you love someone enough, then you can survive through anything with them, that’s how I thought. “What if I was scared?” Younghyun questions, he rests his head onto my chest, I wrap my arms around his shoulders.

“Love makes you brave” I tell the elder and he laughs again. He wasn’t laughing because he found it funny, I understood how he felt. Not too long ago if someone had said the same thing to me, I would have been jaded and pessimistic. However, in the short span of a few months, I was already thinking of cutting off all ties with my former life for a new one.

Younghyun is silent for a while, he doesn’t speak up and instead he stays in my embrace. The elder seemed to have something resting heavily on his mind, his relationship with Jaehyung didn’t seem to be what was bothering him. The pair had met in Canada whilst Younghyun was visiting family, and during that time they met and fell for each other.

With family obligations back in Korea, Younghyun returned to Korea and the two have continued to keep in contact since. There had always been some unfinished business between the two of them, but never had Younghyun seemed this sucked of energy about that situation. There was a reason why he had called me to meet with him, he needed me and I knew it.

So the next day I stay by his side, I do what Younghyun requests and hope at some point the elder will open up to me. To start off the day we find a coffee shop near to the hotel, although the hotel did expensive and tasteful breakfasts. Younghyun preferred the atmosphere of the coffee shop, so I oblige and follow him to shop that he liked. The ambience is quite cool and chic, most of the customers are younger and hipster kids.

“You’re good right? Last Night was just one of those things” Younghyun tries to rationalise last night. He seemed a bit regretful about it all, but not to the point that he was avoiding me, a common occurrence from our teens. We would sleep together usually on a drunken night, or if we had been through some drama. Each time we had always concluded that it would never happen again and back to being friends we returned.

Our friendship was far too important, so I wouldn’t let one night of weakness ruin that. So I do my best to assure Younghyun that I was fine and that there was nothing to worry about. “Park Jinyoung…that’s his name right?” Younghyun suddenly brings up, the look on his face. He admits that whilst he was on my phone, he had found the name in the phone book.

Questions about the man I was dating start to fly around, Younghyun seems to be more interested than I had expected. He asks what my plans were with the elder. He wanted to know if I was returning to Manarola, or if I could ever see myself returning to Korea.

“For now I’ll stay with him” I reveal that I didn’t know what the future held for Jinyoung and I. We weren’t stable enough for me to even want to return to Korea and what would meet us there, I had just slept with my best friend because of insecurities, so we needed work. “I don’t know what the future holds” I tell him honestly.

“Let’s get you some answers” Younghyun replies with his trademark mischievous smile, it doesn’t leave me with a comfortable feeling. It never did, because usually what came out of the other end of one of his schemes was trouble. But still even now the elder had a way with words, he could convince me to do whatever he wanted and that’s how half an hour later Younghyun and I end up get a fortune telling.

The teller’s stall is deep in the city of Berlin, there was a bunch of market stalls set up and one of them was the fortune teller’s stall. It was decorated in the typical and stereotypical set up. The incense hits us as we walk in, there are dark reds, oranges and blacks with middle eastern music playing in the background. Funnily, sat I the middle of the room behind a plainly decorated desk was a young east Asian man.

Sat legs crossed, dressed in a shiny tracksuit, trainers. He looked like someone who was familiar, someone young, handsome and normal which leaves me a little bit sceptical Looking at his face, his large eyes and big lips and handsome features, what the hell was this man doing here reading palms? This was all a little bizarre, but Younghyun grabs me by the arm and leads me to the two seats in front of the woman.

“The two men from far away” the man greets us both, he must be from far away too, his German was worse than mine. Despite my scepticism Younghyun’s eyes light up as soon as he hears this. I’m a little apprehensive, from our appearance and our accents I’m sure the man could tell we were foreigners. “You’re here because you need some clarity for your future” I try to hold back the desire to roll my eyes all the way into the back of my head. Of course that’s what his customers come to him for, it’s not like he was saying anything that common sense couldn’t deduce.

“Can you tell me what my future holds, please?” Younghyun asks, sounding a little desperate. There was a spark of hope in his eyes, I wondered why this meant so much to him. Was it because he was worried about the future that his parents had set up for him, it was the way things went where were from. You go to the right school, you get the right job taking over whatever empire your parents set up and marrying who they desire.

It was suffocating to me, and many others that I knew. I figured that Younghyun who was a more filial son and staying on the path his parents had set, was feeling just a bit more conflicted. I understood it and so for now, I would follow along with what he was doing and if it didn’t work then we would have a more serious chat later on.

“Your immediate future is bleak” the teller speaks up, and as he does the blood drains from Younghyun’s face. It looks as if he’s received a punch in the gut that momentarily leaves him speechless. The expression on his face looks intense, he wasn’t backing down from her words. “Ah right” Younghyun is easily defeated, he looks disappointed.

The fortune teller’s face softens, before he reaches over to place his hand on top of mine, leaving me surprised. “Your current love will end soon” the woman continues to address me, but I don’t want to hear it. This man didn’t know what he was talking about “The man you know is a monster. One that you cannot control” I get up unwilling to hear it, but the teller continues on. “You have doubts about him, and you think you can heal him. But you cannot” I freeze, I didn’t want to believe it but I was still listening.

“You are not someone he will fall in love with” those words more than anything hurt, even if they were from a stranger who I didn’t trust, they still hurt. Thinking of the possibility that Jinyoung would never return my feelings, it hurt me more than I was willing to say. “He will fall for another and risk everything…” I was starting to regret even coming here. I didn’t want to leave, but my feet were stuck to the ground, thinking over those words. Was Seo Inguk the person Jinyoung would fall for? What was he going to risk? Could I stop them; how could I stop them?

“It will take many years for you to reach the right path” the fortune teller suddenly turns to Younghyun; the fortune teller reaches to hold my friend's hand. Younghyun was ready and willing to believe this crap, he was listening so closely that I couldn't even make fun of him for it, he looked desperate, but why? “Many painful years will pass you will take a long path before you reach the right person” Younghyun looks conflicted as he hears this. It was so vague what the teller was telling him, what was he supposed to make of it all? I was so close to getting up and taking Younghyun with me, this was all crap. 

“From the moment you meet your love, you will know it” Younghyun perks up a little as the teller speaks. “You will feel love and pain differently; it will make all that you have felt in your life thus far lacking. Now and till then won’t feel like anything, you will appreciate it more” Younghyun is silent as he listens to this. Despite the promise of love, Younghyun seemed quite disappointed.

The teller reaches over to hold Younghyun’s hand, the man looks to grip onto Younghyun’s hand. Younghyun gasps and stares out ahead, it was if he was in a trance, when I tap him he doesn’t move he stays locked in position for a while. “Be patient… if you wait, then that feeling could be yours one day”, I watch on concerned by Younghyun. “What the hell are you doing?” when I question the teller he smiles, the look in his eyes was so serene.

When the teller lets go of Younghyun’s hand, there is a silence and Younghyun stares ahead mouth wide gaping. He looked different, I hadn’t ever seen him look like this before. I wonder what had happened to him, when grip to his arm, he jumps a little startled and turns to me and then to the teller. “Be patient” the teller reveals and Younghyun nods his head, before placing a few notes onto the table to pay for everything.

There was a tense air as we leave the fortune teller, Younghyun and I received troubling news but it seemed that even though I had received the more troubling verdict. Younghyun seemed distracted until he receives a mysterious phone call, there is a brief look of confliction on his face before a smile spreads across his face. He hooks arms with me and tells me that he has somewhere to take me, that somewhere is a shopping complex.

“I need something to wear, that makes me look dapper” Younghyun announces as he leads me into an upscale clothing store. With so many departments to its attire, there is a men’s section that sells suits. Younghyun quickly walks around, looking for suits, I follow him and have some suits handed to us along the way. “They’re my gift and you can’t reject them, or else you’re rejecting my heart” the elder emotionally black mails me.

Younghyun picks out two suits for me, two cool cuts something that I probably would have chosen to wear in the past. He knew my taste, that I didn’t like anything over the top, and so if I was going to be gifted with this, then it wouldn’t all bad. “Get changed quickly kid” Younghyun instructs and leads me towards the changing.

Whilst I get changed, I take the opportunity to read through my texts. There weren’t many messages waiting for me, but there was one. I honestly hadn’t been expecting one, so my heart flutters a little with excitement when I see who it’s from. The message from Jinyoung is cute and unexpected, it reads:

“Hyung is bad. He misses you, next time I see you. Let’s fuck until there is no more tension in the air”

A grin makes its way across my face, a force of habit when the elder was like this. When Jinyoung was loving, then he could truly be a loving person. When he was like that, he made me willing to do anything, willing to cling onto him for dear life. Because a life with the loving Jinyoung is someone I would be able to risk myself for.

“Hey hurry up kid” Younghyun calls me out of the dressing room, and when I finally get out to show how I look, I find someone had joined us. With him was another familiar face from my past, it was the woman who I was supposed to marry according to my parents.

We had grown up together, our parents were friends and each had companies that they wanted to eventually merge. Since before I was born, I had been set to marry her. But obviously things hadn’t worked out that way, I had left my family and cut myself off and had no intention of changing that at all. So my guard is immediately up when I see her watching me, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. Without hesitation, she pulls me into her warm embrace hugging me.

“Oppa, it’s been so long!” Yoobin squeals, before quickly talking. She’s so cute and friendly as always. “Dowoonie, I missed you so much!”. It had been a while since we had seen each other, and last time we had spoken to her. I had told her in no uncertain terms that I would never love her or marry her. Not that I had ever let her believe her otherwise, I had known very early on I wasn’t interested in women. But even still Yoobin was stubborn and still wanted me, it wasn’t an original story, I wasn’t different for running away.

Yoobin had been doing well, she was apparently travelling across Europe due to a break that she had from studying. It was a trip that she had planned for us before, but I had suddenly left and now she was here at the same with me and it wasn’t a coincidence. Younghyun smiles and explains that knowing Yoobin was also in town and he would invite us to meet.

“Guess who else is in town?” Yoobin excitedly reveals that some family members of mine would be in time. I had ignored so many calls and texts, now it seemed that they were taking the next step and coming to me. “They won’t be leaving Berlin until they see you” Yoobin explains, she chuckles. I knew that what she had to say was right, for my family to travel across the world to meet me. So they wouldn’t let things go.

So reluctantly I go with Yoobin, I had my guard up and was ready to clarify things for my parents. I wasn’t backing down or changing my mind, I had so much to lose and I knew I couldn’t waver to them.

“Uncle you owe me” Seo Eunkwang my favourite older cousin jokes with a wide friendly grin on face, the man was always warm and kind to me. Most cousins fought to be better than the other, but Eunkwang was so kind and welcoming, when Yoobin and I join him for dinner that night. The restaurant we had decided to meet up in was an upscale Italian restaurant, it wasn’t my style but nothing much from my old life wasn’t my style.

Younghyun had conveniently excused himself needing to go to the hotel and meet with another friend, so I was left alone and defenceless. Eunkwang and my father had both been sat next to each other, both looked smart and dressed up in their expensive clothing. I was the one that looked out of place, I was out of the suit that Younghyun had bought me, he was in some skinny jeans, a plaid shirt and vans.

“My son, I’m so glad that you came!” my father warmly greets me. He had always been warm, I hadn’t grown up in an uncomfortable household. Apart from all the familial pressures, my family life had been quite warm and ideal. My parents had been affectionate to me, they had been active and present in my life and I had been very grateful about it.

“We’ve missed you!” Eunkwang reaches across the table to fluff my hair, the elder looked bright and friendly as usual. The warm and kindness radiates from him, I had been around him far too long to know that what he showed me was what was real. I had missed him a lot, but him being here with my father had me sceptical about what was going to happen.

Before the food arrives, the conversation starts with a catch up, Eunkwang does most of the talking as he talks about how and his wife were expecting a child. “Victoria is so excited this time round. Her first pregnancy was hard but this seems to be smoother” Eunkwang looked excited by it all and Yoobin seemed to swept up in it all the baby talk as well. As they talk I catch sight of my father, and he had that look in his eyes.

As he plays with his food, my father was watching me with a longing in his eyes. He looks hurt and upset, that same look of sadness he got when I told him that I had no intention of being married or living the life that I wanted for him. The knowledge that I was a man who liked men, it was too hard for him to accept. I’m sure hearing about Eunkwang’s expanding family left him with a longing, he probably wished that his son was normal and heading on the same path.

“How are you doing my son?” my father speaks up, he starts to ask questions about what I was doing at the moment. It sounded like parental concern, but to me it was irksome. It didn’t seem genuine. We were skirting around the issues, so I would face them head on and be as brutal as needed. “I’m still gay, living with my older lover” that silences everyone at our table. Eunkwang is the first to speak up, he tries not to be fazed by what I had said. “So what’s his name?” his question seems genuine, meanwhile in the corner of my eye, I can see that my father was tense.

“Park Jinyoung, he is a jobless man with no aims and objectives in life” I knew that wasn’t true. No matter how hard Jinyoung tried to convince me of that, I knew a bright, intelligent and witty man like him was capable of more. Jinyoung would achieve great things, that I was sure of.

“Park Jinyoung. He’s the son of Park Jaesuk and Song Jihyo, the family they hold a confectionary sweets company” I raise my eyebrow surprised. My father had done his research it seemed, he already knew about Jinyoung and his background. He lists out stuff that I didn’t even know, I hadn’t known that Jinyoung was from a wealthy family.

“It appears that you’ve found a good match for yourself” Eunkwang teases, meanwhile Yoobin huffs and puffs. “I don’t like the sound of him, why isn’t he here? Why has he let you come here all alone?” Yoobin jealously questions. “Yes. It would have been nice to meet the young man” my father comments, it all seemed fake and I didn’t trust it.

“Park Jinyoung is someone who doesn’t need to be involved with my old life” Yoobin scoffs in disbelief. “You can’t manipulate me… I won’t let you bring my guard down” I speak up defensively. “That’s not what I’m trying to do-“my soft spoken father tries to speak up. But the past had made me jaded, I had given my family so many opportunities to accept me as who I am. Each of those occasions my feelings were minimised and ignored.

Flying me abroad to pray the gay away had been my breaking point, and right now I couldn’t trust them again. They would lull me into a false sense of trust and then betray me, I wasn’t going to fall for it again. So I excuse myself first, no longer wanting to entertain any of this, I head off. Ignoring their pleas for me to stay, I head off back to the hotel.

Waiting in my room was Younghyun, inexplicably he’d managed to get himself in my room and was waiting there with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry dude” he tries to apologise, but I’m too pissed to listen. So I flop on the bed and ignore anything he has to say or at least I try to. “Your dad just wanted to see you. He was worried about you” he tries to explain, but I wasn’t in the mood. I was irritated that he hadn’t been up front about his plan and that he was being upfront with me overall as well. There was something he was hiding.

“Call me when you’re ready to talk” Younghyun excuses himself before heading off leaving me to sulk. Sometime does pass as I argue against me, had I done the right thing. Even though I felt assured that I had dodged a complicated family bullet, I couldn’t help but feel regretful about it all. As I lay deep in my thoughts, I don’t notice how much time passes until I get a call that pulls me out of my feelings.

When I reach to look for my phone, I notice that it was early in the morning. In a few hours it would be dawn and I had been up just thinking about my situation, still conflicted. Looking at my phone I see calls and texts from my family, my father and Eunkwang had texted me but I wasn’t ready to face them. So I scroll past them and see a good night text from Jinyoung, it was recent which meant he was awake, so I take the chance and call him.

Surprisingly the older man answers the phone immediately, unlike yesterday he wasn’t being aloof. It was strange but welcomed, I was glad that even though I had reached out first, this was progress. “Isn’t it late for you Mr Yoon?” Jinyoung teases on the other end. I can’t help but grin just hearing him, it made me relax, it made me easy.

“How is Berlin?” the simple question opens me up, and without hesitation I let it all flow. Jinyoung patiently listens and he hums encouraging to speak and be honest. When I’m done and I’ve let all my frustrations out, Jinyoung speaks. He explains that he understands why I could be a little uncertain about my family and being apprehensive made sense.

When discussing Younghyun, the elder has more understanding than I do. “Think it about” the elder expresses that there had to be more to the situation. “Your friend needed you there, there was a reason he bought you there. And it wasn’t just fuck you and reunite you with your family” my ears burn embarrassed at the thought of him knowing. I wouldn’t deny it, but I’m sure me sleeping with my best friend didn’t work in my favour.

Hearing it from Jinyoung’s objective perspective makes me rethink things. I had probably been too harsh to Younghyun. I would have to apologise to him when I saw him next and we would talk. But for a while I cling onto the moment, talking to Jinyoung. It had been a couple of days since we had last seen each other and I already missed him like crazy.

When I ask him what he’s up to, he’s a little evasive. I know what he tells me isn’t everything, but I don’t pout or complain. I was too scared of him ending the call on a sour note. So for a little while I just listen to the sound of his voice, his beautiful, silky honey like voice.

I don’t know how long we’re chatting for before I fall asleep, and when I wake up it’s late in the morning. I make my way to the coffee shop that Younghyun had taken me to, I would need a peace offering and I knew what a sweet tooth that he had. When I get to the coffee machine I find that Younghyun had the same train of thought as well.

The elder was sat at a table for two alone, looking quite sappy and pathetic. I walk over to his side; I take a seat patiently wait for him to speak. “I’m getting married tomorrow” the words shock me. He reveals that his parents had set it up for him, it was a union that he had tried to deny and avoid.

“I thought that if I just kept in denial about it, then it wouldn’t happen. You know” I could tell he was struggling. When I tell him to not go, to not get married against his will he shakes his head. “I’m not get married just for me, I have someone to protect and at this point. It’s better I marry her than someone who could fall in love with me”. His bride was a close friend of his, someone who he was trying to protect.

“I may have some reservations, but I won’t have any regrets” but he admits that he was having a hard time. “Will you be there for me?” he asks, he looked like he needed me. So without hesitation, I agree. I would wear whatever, and do whatever he felt was necessary. For now I would stay by my friend’s side, as long as he needed me.


	3. Sao Paulo

Jaebum’s POV. 

 

Life was pretty good right now; in fact, it was pretty spectacular. I was loaded, full of drugs, blood and alcohol; I was heavily buzzed and enjoying a wild night. That wild night included a fantastic blow job in public, being watched on by an audience of so called friends. I would call them acquaintances more than anything, they liked being around the money and power and I had a lot of it.

Despite my young age, I had done and said things that had lead me into the path of power. I was rich beyond imagination and all I had done was lie and deceive to get that, I was a very lucky person. Right now was one of those lucky moments, I was sat in a blood bar of which I was the owner of. With all the rounds on me, I had the gratitude and attention of everyone around.

 

The attention was focused on me, as I had in between my legs a very beautiful attractive native woman giving me a pretty amazing blowjob. The woman was worker in the bar, and after some charming and a little monetary incentive. I had the woman willing to push away her pride, there was something filthy and dirty about it and I loved it.

Her head bops, she takes my cock down my throat. She was good at holding her breath, and her tongue game was brilliant. The woman avoids my gaze, I could tell that she felt shame, it was something that I enjoyed. Reaching for under her chin, I point her face up to make her look right at me. I knew that I was being cruel, but I was enjoying this moment.

My enjoyment didn’t come from being watched, I couldn’t give a crap about the people watching. No I didn’t care about anyone else but myself in this moment, truthfully my vanity was driving me, I loved having this kind of power over this person. I smile and stroke through her hair and buck upwards, as I do I catch in the corner of my eye a disapproving glare directed at me, it was the fun police.

Ever the party pooper, my business partner Lee Junho stands at the bar watching me with disapproval. The elder was always judgemental, but it never stopped me, I focus on the woman in front of me until I reach my release to cheers from others. I catch my breath and watch the woman victorious, I had relieved myself and that’s all that mattered.

On the way home, I go to the car ride home with Junho. We head over to the hotel that we had been staying in this week, we had been in Sao Paulo on business. As we head back to our hotel there is a brief time and we don’t talk, he doesn’t approve, he never did. To him I was a child, someone who was an immature and nuisance.

“Showing off like that…” the elder pauses unable to hide the irritation on his face. “The more showing off you do, the more likely someone will want to bring you down” he was right, but I didn’t appreciate the lecture. “Don’t be so foolish”. Junho frowns deeply, the look on his face. He only held one expression, he wasn’t any fun to be around but he was great at his job. 

Whenever I spoke to him, there was some lingering feelings of resentment when looked at me. “Put your pride aside, you shouldn’t be like this!” he berates me. There was a clashing in our personalities but it never really explains those feelings of resentment. There was more to why he was like this? Either way I had to tolerate all the sulking, he was someone who I needed to get work on with. We didn’t have to become best friends, but for now we would just need to work together.

Junho heads up straight to his hotel room, he was a stickler for following his schedule. Meanwhile me, needing a little bit of air, I take a stroll on the hotel beach. It was cold and windy; I take a calm stroll. There was nobody around, so I was free to have my own kind of fun.

My mind fuelled with blood, alcohol and drugs. I was so free, loose and vulnerable. In this state I remember something I had spent longer than a decade trying to forget. Something or someone, it was had all been in the past. The someone who had snuck into my thoughts when I was at my lowest, he found his ways into my memories. No matter how hard I had tried to erase him, he still remains present. As I walk down the beach I feel a hand clasp at mine before gripping tightly.

I was taken back in time, to a simpler time. A time where I was simply just a young boy who was out of town with my boyfriend. It was school break for him and we had managed to sneak out of town, telling no one, not our friends or family where we were. It was supposed to be a romantic weekend by the sea, we had gone to Busan. Staying at a bed and breakfast near the beach, we were to have a romantic week just the two of us.

When I turn to my side I see my lover, with a grin worn across his face. He was so beautiful, breath taking even. His big doughy eyes that shone so innocently to me, they told me that he was. Trustworthy. That he loved me and would always love me, but those were lies. They were? But even now as I remember them, it's hard to feel that I had been lied to.

“Hyung you’re cute” he was bright, so bright that it broke through my barriers that I had put up. I was definitely a tough person to get through to, but Jinyoung had hardly even lifted a finger and he managed to get my barriers down. He could say things that made things better, if only momentarily I was happy when he was around.

Jinyoung was like the comfort of home, he was the person I was the most comfortable with. Leaning his head onto my shoulder, he jumps up in the air before yelping as I reach my free hand to palm his ass. A plump and pert ass, I grope and squeeze for him causing the younger to groan in pleasure. I loved how he looked when he was turned one, how let himself go in that little moment with me and let me show his sexiest side.

It was the best sight to see, Jinyoung allowing himself to be honest and real and not hide himself. He was allowing himself to feel what felt naturally as I publicly grope with him, to flirt with him and be a couple. We were out on Haeundae Beach in Busan, we were taking a stroll on the beach after spending most of our day inside making love. It was rare for me to get to be with Jinyoung alone like this so I was taking advantage of it. We were usually sneaking around back in Jinhae, so now that we were a different town that no one knew us.

Park Jinyoung was better in this environment, he was brighter, happier and more affectionate. His brand of affection was cute and sexy something that I couldn’t resist. The look in his eyes full of wickedness, it was quite wonderful. To the normal glance Jinyoung was friendly, delicate and kind and yes he was those things, but he was also frisky, playful and spirited. Half the trouble that I had gotten myself into recently was because of him.

Sweet with his words and his expressions, I knew that Jinyoung was genuinely a great person. But there was a little darkness in him, the alter server church boy who was going to grow up and become a priest. He had conquered the hearts of those around him and he wasn’t short of admirers. He on the outside was living a very ideal life, with a great personal life and an even better academic career. Despite being the top of the school, he was going to give that all up and serve as a priest.

Jinyoung’s family were very religious folks, they were very devout and attended church often. Jinyoung’s father hadn’t followed the holy path as a priest, although he often attends church often, but he married Jinyoung’s mother and pursued his successful business pursuits. Nonetheless, the elder had pushed Jinyoung onto the path that he didn’t go on himself. It was total bullshit, but Jinyoung had grown up feeling pressured to do it, he was going to live a boring soulless life serving someone who didn’t exist.

When I thought about it, the bitterness and resentment that I felt was difficult to hide. They stood in the way of the happiness that I had wanted with Jinyoung, I wished there was a way for him to break away from it all. But whenever I brought it up, Jinyoung defensive and would withdraw from me if I tried. So I didn’t, instead I clung to him and the time that we have.

Being with Jinyoung, I had seen all the different sides to him. I knew that there was a sadness to him, a coldness and bitterness to him. There was a side that he hid from people, but I had been able to see it. Through his warm smiles, and cute expressions, I had been able to see who Jinyoung really was. I loved him for who he really was, I had fallen for him knowing that he wasn’t perfect.

The first moment I had seen a crack in his personality, was during a basketball match. I did not attend the same school as Jinyoung, but I did meet him during a basketball match between our two schools. Jinyoung’s school St. Matthews a very popular, successful and competitive team. Annoyingly competitive, and violent and they didn’t like to play fair.

Jinyoung who had been playing, had mostly kept to the side-lines and not involved himself into any of the problematic behaviours. Just from the look in his eyes, I could tell that he was getting annoyed, he had warned a few players on his team about their behaviours but it seemed there was a bit of tension on his team. I soon figured out it was because of all the adoration that Jinyoung seemed to be receiving by the female student population, it was jealousy, totally trivial.

Frustrated by it all Jinyoung seems to switch off, he plays the game but he doesn’t put much effort into winning. That doesn’t win him any favours from his team mates, they turn their attentions from our team and onto punishing Jinyoung. I had never seen this before, a team turning on one of their own, so of course I was irritated to see it. A one on one fight is something that wouldn’t bother me, but seeing someone being ganged up on.

My focus on the fame wasn’t all that there in the first place, after all our team wasn’t very good and we were just playing the game and going through the motions. There was no expectations or interest from anyone playing, so there was no turning on me when I helped Jinyoung. When I nudged, and pushed off and turned their attention to their enemies.

Needless to say the poking and prodding that I do almost gets us in a fight and the game is prematurely cancelled. The visiting team who had been winning at the time leaves successful and they head off to the changing rooms, leaving our team to clean up the mess as a punishment from our school. The St. Matthews kids would be disciplined at their school and for then, the drama calms down.

Park Jinyoung stays behind, he doesn’t follow his team to the changing room. Instead he politely apologises for the trouble his team causes and he joins my team in the clean-up. Such an act is appreciated from our team, we were a gang of misfits and so we appreciated the misfit that Jinyoung appeared to be. Little did we know that he was actually well liked in general, just not by his bitter team mates.

So under the impression that Jinyoung was a misfit who didn’t like his team, we quickly befriended each other and bitched about his team. It was quite strange, from our first meeting we were so comfortable around each other. There was no awkwardness, when we talked it was like we were old friends. Jinyoung somehow knew how to make me laugh and back then that was quite an accomplishment for someone to achieve.

Honestly it hadn’t taken me long to be charmed by Jinyoung, it had been under an hour and I was already taken by him. So taken by the way his eyes wrinkled when he smiled, on the way licked his lips when he had talked for a long time. The way he could look intense and thoughtful in one moment and cute and full of humour the next. This was all I had seen in a short time, and it had sent me fluttering and had kept me fluttering since.

We had shared our first kiss that day, in the cloak room. As we put away the remainder of the equipment away, with no other students around, with his suckie team leaving him to go home alone and with any teachers gone. We were all alone, and that was enough for both of us to let our guards down.

From the moment I had laid eyes on Jinyoung I had known. I had seen that he wasn’t interested in his little fan club, he didn’t have any eyes for any of the women. But I had seen the signs that his interest lay elsewhere, it lay with men. The team mates who had been punished him for the adoration he got, had no idea that Jinyoung’s eyes ate them up.

For someone who was also attracted to the same sex, I understood that look and I knew how damaging it could be to reveal such feelings. But I had never really been one who had cared about reputation, although my mother had never confirmed it to the public. It was well known that I was a child who had been conceived from an extra marital affair. And as such I had been the neighbourhood’s social pariah, not that I minded much.

I was someone who did better alone, I had found that other people were disappointed and could not be relied on. So in meeting Jinyoung, I had been jaded as a person, I only believed that people were to be used as a means to an end. In the case of the pretty boy from the church school, he would be a good lay, because I had found that good boys always were.

That day we didn’t sleep together, we did share a heated kiss which had been different from anything I had experienced in my life up until that point. I had never chased after anyone, I had always left things to fall in my lap, but with Jinyoung, I did ignore normal protocol and found my way to him.

“Dude what are you thinking about?” Jinyoung pulls me out of my walk down memory lane. Back to the beach, and without warning I find myself sat on a rock near the shore alone. I had a memory inside a memory, and being with Jinyoung as long as we had been, there were many of those. Memories that were linked to each other. I had tried over time to erase them, but sometimes there were times where I was vulnerable to those feelings.

“Fuck you Park Jinyoung, you dead asshole” I mutter before leaning down on the rock and trying to focus my blurry vision. Mixing alcohol and blood wasn’t something I often did, and get intoxicated on both levels didn’t work in my favour, I was feeling regretful. Unfortunately thinking about my dead ex, wasn’t the thing that I regretted the most, not even close.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself” I begin my mantra. “He betrayed you” I repeat this over and over again until the feelings I had to conflict this disappeared. I wouldn’t be mixing my drugs again, and I wouldn’t leave myself weak like that, not for a while. I didn’t enjoy being vulnerable, it didn’t work when you were in my line of business.

So a few hours I would lie on the beach, the temperature was pretty low but with as much fresh blood and drugs mixing through my body I don’t feel it much. At the very least it feels like a comfortable breeze, and in the back I can hear the waves crashing onto the shore working as an anchor I needed. With the beach so peaceful I can slip off into sleep, I didn’t need much sleep just enough for my human side to function.

Fortunately, my sleep is less troubling, with no memories slipping into my subconscious. I drop off into a deep sleep until hours later I feel something wet on my face, a heavy breathing and panting. Although I was still very high from my binge, I was still cognizant enough to tell that what I was hearing wasn’t human. When I blink awake I spot a large shaggy furred creature by my face, sniffing and nudging me.

“Isabella!” a male voice calls out, the is a little muted to begin with but slowly becomes louder and louder. I wasn’t in the best state this early from sleep, so I don’t have the best instincts or care much. Right now I was focused on the mutt in front of me, it was the first thing in front of me and I don’t know why but it seemed familiar.

The voice comes close as I have a stare down with the strange four legged things, I stroke through its fur and finally piece it together. When I look up I spot a worried looking human and in their hand was a leash, the man was desperately looking for his mutt. So I let go of his prized pet and try to direct it back to its owner, it doesn’t move, instead it just barks louder catching the attention of its owner.

“Izzy? Is that you” the owner runs over in our direction, I slowly get up from my rock still a little disorientated. Standing up so suddenly seems to startle the man who falls onto his butt, just looking at him shortly. I could tell that he was very attractive, he was short, but still well built and toned. His skin was tanned, and his hair was brown and up from his face. With the plumpest pink lips and big bright eyes.

From first glance he immediately reminds me of someone, it leaves me feeling a little startled as well. Speechless I watch the man, there were obvious differences between the two, yet I still I got the same vibe.

“Whoa you scared me!” the man who had been earlier speaking Portuguese breaks into a more comfortable Korean before returning to more of a clunky Portuguese. “My dog. Lost her. Ran from me he did!” I could tell what he was getting at, but for some reason wanting to make him feel comfortable I start to speak up in Korean. “it’s a her? She’s kind of ugly for a girl?” though it’s not the kindest thing to say, it certainly wasn’t the worst thing I’d ever said. “What do you mean? She’s super handsome! There’s nothing wrong with that” the owner defends his pet. 

Somehow the mutt seems to understand as he finds himself whining at the feet of his owner. “Izzy you’re the most handsome doggie out there, ignore Mr?” the owner looks up as if waiting for me to fill in the blank but I don’t. “Should I guess?” he says as he strokes the mutt’s ears, the mutt hums in response. The man doesn’t rip his gaze away from me. It was strange, most of the time when people faced off against me, they were the first to waver and avoid eye contact, but this man doesn’t.

The dog owner stays resolute in facing me off, this last a while before his shaggy dog barks and breaks the tension. “Ah Isabella, is daddy being rude?” the man chuckles stroking his dog, before looking up to me. He introduces himself as Do Kyungsoo, he was a Korean native from Seoul. Just looking at him I could tell that there was more hidden behind his handsome charm, he was suspicious and I couldn’t put my finger on what.

“Okay, I should just skip straight to business” my guard is immediately up this stranger, not that it hadn’t been up. “Im Jaebum, your future is rocky” the stranger speaks up ominously. His words, what did they even mean? The other reaches for my hand, and the second it does, it freezes me place. I was locked in place and in front me there is an unfamiliar image in front of, there was what looked like battle scene.

Stood above me was a man that I recognised, it was well known in the drainer community. He was someone you didn’t mess with, not without risking your life. He was someone I tried to avoid as much as I could but in passing I have met him through friends. The elder was one of the stronger drainers in the world, he should busy trying to control the drainers of the world. Jang Wooyoung was stood above me, I couldn’t move but I could see him towering over me.

“You’ve cause enough trouble up until this point. I can’t let you continue” Wooyoung says those words shocked me. What did he mean? What had I done to get the attention of i protettori, was this really real or was I hallucinating? What had the dog owner done to me? When I was free of this I would punish this man. “Im Jaebum, you must be stopped” the elder delivers his warning and as he walks away all of a sudden everything goes black. My heart goes out of control, I start to sweat. Panicked I can’t understand what I had just seen, why would I ever run into i protettori like this?

“What the hell was that?!” I yell annoyed and confused. Meanwhile Kyungsoo stays quietly, as if he was waiting for me to calm down. “You know very well that there are different kinds of people across the world” his mysterious acting was starting to irritate. So I reach for his throat and push him to the ground, he lands with a thud into the sand and soon his mutt runs to his side. How loyal he was.

Instead of showing fear or anger, the other had a grin on his face. As he sits up he watches me. “You let your emotions rule you” the other speaks up. Irritated and not wanting to deal with it I turn and head off. “Jaebum don’t be like this” he was pushing it, if he kept this up then I would kill him and his dog. In fact, I have to fight against my urges not to rip his throat out, I was a busy and important person.

As I make my way back to the hotel room, I get a call from my boss. Hwang Chansung was in town, he was the legal face to our business. He had a greed, not satisfied with being extremely successful in the entertainment and club business. “Bummie, hyung is here for you” the elder coos over the line. He had some business to sort out first, but we would meet up later.

“Buy something sexy” the elder instructs, he doesn’t really give me much choice. He had sent me over his credit card, and I would go shopping before we were to meet up. So reluctantly do as the elder instructed me, it was reluctant but I would do what was elder wanted because I liked being on his good side. Being on his good side meant I could get what I wanted in return, being his little plaything I didn’t mind it.

I spend my morning shopping and I find something he would want me to wear. Sometimes it was demeaning. But there was something dirty that I enjoyed about it. Knowing that I would please the man, he was one of the few men that I ever really yielded to.

After my shopping trip I head off to the production factory. We had visited the pumps that we had located across Rio, now I would be going to the jungles to where our operation of narcotics had actually started. When I arrive I’m greeted by a tense situation, a face-off between one of the workers and the operations leader the sadistic Seo Juhyun, she was known for running her operations with an iron fist.

“Please, please I didn’t do anything!!” one of the smaller workers, he looked gaunt, grubby and weak. They all looked that way, the people who worked here weren’t staying in ideal working conditions. They looked, dirty and smelled unpleasant, that was something I felt that I needed to change immediately. I wasn’t one with a lot of empathy, but I knew if we were to have a functioning organisation. There were people who needed to live in healthy and liveable conditions. I couldn’t have my workers die.

The man pleads Juhyun, it appears that she was suspicious about a missing kilo of drugs. It was understandable that she was suspicious, under these abysmal working conditions working for very little pay. The workers would probably had motive to steal and make their own money off it. So seeing the need to eliminate such issues in the future.

I instruct Juhyun to let the workers go, we have a brief discussion on changing the work environment. We would give the workers more, we would take a small financial deficit, and take care of the employees to keep us loyal. “You’re so soft” Juhyun teases, although she does agree with my proposal. She knew her position in everything, she didn’t have any ego, she was simply a person who worked and earned shit loads of money.

After our talk with her I’m assured that everything was running smoothly, she’s had issues with some of the workers trying to tip of other sellers and makers and so she’s had a lot of fighting on her plate but she had it sorted out. There had been rumours that she was a very tough and unforgiving enemy and that she had some of the biggest war lords scared off.

When I look at her in the eyes I can tell that she was cable, I could tell that something in her was cold and detached. To be someone with power within this operation that was something we all needed to do, we needed to be rid of any type of humanity to function. I did my research recently and it turns out that you’re connected to one of your competitors,

Late afternoon, I walk to hotel and there waiting for me was Kyungsoo. He greets me with a warm smile, the look on his face. After how we had ended our last conversation I had to admit I admitted the nerve he had to be waiting for me like this. “We need to talk hyung” the wide smile on his face doesn’t leave his face, even when I reject him. He persists and follows me.

“I will follow you if I have to” the tone of his voice let me know that he was serious. So reluctantly I stop and tell him that I had plans and instead of talking now, we would and could talk later. “After you’re doing with your sugar daddy?” I turn to face off with the younger. Just because I admired his confidence, doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t be afraid to hurt him right now. Kyungsoo seems to read the expression on my face, and back away a little. “Okay, let’s meet early tomorrow?” he suggests, still holding that confident and sexy smirk. I nod my head, before heading into the hotel.

After getting washed up and cleaned at the hotel, I head up to the top floor to meet with my lover. Chansung had the best suite booked, it was beautiful and elegant. I don’t make much effort to take it in, after all I had been around the world and been to so many places like this. Since knowing Chansung, I had been given many opportunities to visit such upscale places. Time after time, those places became boring for him.

Our night together wasn’t about business, there was no talk about operations. It was just typically a more sexual and romantic evening; I wasn’t one for romance. It had been many years since I had been emotionally and romantically involved, however I enjoyed sleeping with the elder so when he felt like this I would play along. I really did enjoy fucking him, I enjoyed being submissive to him.

There was something dirty about it, something filthy about the way he told me his desires blankly. “You look so fucking tasty” Chansung whispers, as he removes the hair from my face. The handsome elder eats me up, his eyes were hooded, full of lust and desire. He had never hidden his emotions in my time, what he said he meant. So right now I could tell that he wanted to unwind, and the best way for him to do that was pound my ass.

I didn’t bottom often, but with the elder I had conceded. He wasn’t particularly strong, not against me. But he was definitely good with his words, he was also good with pleasuring me. He wasn’t selfish, he made sure that we were both satisfied left satisfied. “Did you open yourself well sweetie?” the elder asks as he strips me. He leaves sweet kisses down my neck, he caresses, feels and licks me up and down.

“You’re so tight still” the elder comments, with his fingers inside of me. I rock down onto it, the more he did. The more I enjoyed the feeling of him being inside of me, put me inside of you. He guides himself inside of me, he was so big, part of the reason that I broke my general rule of bottoming for another man. I rock into him as he fills me up, he felt so good inside of me. I moan into his shoulder and grip him closer to me, he thrusts into me. This is what I needed, no emotion and sexual release. I keep going, more and more excited by it all.

An hour later after a sexual work out, I leave Chansung to sleep in the bed alone before heading over to the window. I look out of the window, it was pitch black and I couldn’t really see anything but here I was staring out. I had never really thought about my future; would I be able to trust this person? What kind of future would there be for someone like me?

I never liked to stay in bed with Chansung, it was too intimate and it was something I wasn’t willing to do. I didn’t want to get too deep and risk the pretty perfect set up that we had. So I leave him to sleep, and head out for a late night stroll. I would walk out dressed in an outfit that Chansung had bought for me, one of many, he liked to keep his stamp on me. I didn’t care too much, I liked the clothes, the sex and the money.

Whilst on my late night stroll I pass by an alleyway and as I do I hear the yelling of someone, they sounded familiar. I check round and see that Junho was pinned down and being taunted by a group of Brazilian thugs they looked like smelled like drainers, alcohol and narcotics.

The fear in his eyes, it was the first time I had seen anything other than disdain in his eyes. The drainers complain, “since you and your Asian rats came to our country selling those drugs you have ruined our nation”. Junho although scared still looked irritated by this all. The men continue to show their contempt for their business competition.

” Now there’s another foreign prick who has come and wants to take over our turf. It has to be one or the other, it can’t be both” the man threatens in heated Portuguese. “Tell us whoever your leader to leave before we annihilate them”, no matter how many punches, kicks or worse. Junho the human stands his ground against the drainers and does back down. There it was, he had just won my loyalty and with that I don’t hesitate any longer, I move quickly to take out my enemies.

It had been a while since I had moved, since I had fought but it was fun. Ripping them limb from limb, it was quite bloody and Junho closes his eyes the whole way through it. I knew he had to keep his humanity, he had never touched the bloody and cruel side of things. I handled that, he was the white colour side of the operations, and I needed him.

Junho is grateful but he can’t say it, that would mean showing weakness. Before Junho does excuse me, “be less noisy when you’re in town for business". Junho’s attack makes me become aware, the more I advertised myself, with such wild behaviours, the more enemies I would get. I was wrong and Junho was right, but I wouldn’t be telling him that. “I’ll be leaving for Korea soon, there is more business to be done”, Junho orders. “Now that you’ve had your fun, it’s time to leave”.

Elusive as usual, Junho rushes back up to the hotel room to get cleaned up, I decide to head up there. I would clean up after myself, I’m sure I would have some making up to do with Chansung about the outfit that he had bought for me, something that I would no doubt enjoy.

Once I am washed up and cleaned up for the might, I meet up with the frustrating Do Kyungsoo. I was late for our meeting, but he doesn’t seem bothered by that, instead he picks up from where he left off. “You were startled earlier with the future vision, so I thought maybe just words would be better” he explains.

“You will fall in love again” I scoff at those words, love is something that I had closed myself off from, it wasn’t going to happen. “It’s true, you won’t be able to tell until it happens but you will lose control and your greed will lead to your downfall”. Those words irk me, the thought that I would fall because of love? I wasn’t the kind of person anymore. “I won’t fall for anyone” I tell Kyungsoo, because I was certain that I wouldn’t.

“It’s not as simple as saying it, you know yourself how love can sneak up on you and linger” Kyungsoo says knowingly. It was as if knew more than he was letting me know.” You are not the villain that you think you are, you still have the ability to redeem yourself and your actions” he preaches almost and like that, what he has to say loses its interest.

“Mind your own business” I snarl back. “There will be a hero to save all of humanity, you will cross paths with him” he looks through me as he says this. Everything was a little ominous, who would I run across. Who would save humanity? “As long as he doesn’t get in the way of my business, then that’s something I don’t have to worry about” Kyungsoo smiles in reply as if he didn’t believe me. so I walk away and watching me with a grin on his face unremoved, Kyungsoo looks like he has more to say but he’s holding back.

“Why are you telling me any of this?” I spin around and question him suspiciously. “Because it makes for a better story, if you were blindsided then it wouldn’t be fair” was this guy serious? The grin on his face, I could read his expression to tell if he was serious or not. Was I being played? “If I told when this would happen then you would have the advantage, so obviously I can’t go that far” Disadvantage for what?

“You will have a battle, and you will have to fight, it will happen when you least expect it” there he was again, warning me was this guy a quack? “Don’t cloud your head with greed” says before grinning so wildly that I wasn’t sure of whether not to believe in him. But any doubt I had s quickly erased as Kyungsoo takes a few steps away from me before puffing into thin air. Shocking me, what the hell was he? I knew there were all type of supernatural beings across the world, but I had never run across someone like him, he was a mystery that I know would irk me.

Needless to say my encounter leaves me unable to sleep. So I focus on getting some business done. Seo Juhyun found about the attack on Junho, she explains that an opposing gang who sent out the attack. She has her men sent out to solve the problem. She advises me it would be best to leave the country; it was doubtful that I would be linked whatever she was planning but she was being cautious so I would trust her.

“I have things covered here, but I here that your base in Korea needs rebuilding” the younger advises me. She was right, we had expanded out of Korea due to the trouble that had gone down a few years back, but now enough time had passed and it was possible for us to start over again. This time round we wouldn’t be as flashy and outrageous, as Junho had said we needed to be low key and keep everything discreet. “Do well JB-nim” Juhyun wishes me well, before heading back to business.

All that’s left is to leave Sao Paulo, we take the expensive bullet proof car to the airport. Chansung was staying in town on business, but he escorts me to the airport. He doesn’t hold back on his affection, kissing and groping me. In the corner of my eye I spot Junho silent and he looked like he was seething, he was unhappy and upset. He loved him, that was it.

Chansung treated Junho as a close friend and confidant, but it seemed that the younger wanted him as more. My relationship with his desired must have been subject for a lot of hurt, disdain and contempt. Yet knowing this wouldn’t make me stop, I wasn’t going to stop fucking Chansung, not when it benefitted me. When it stopped then maybe I would lead the elder to Junho, not that it mattered, it seemed that Junho would always be loyal.

Junho says a quick goodbye before heading into the airport, Chansung is completely clueless. That or he skilfully ignores the feelings of the man he claims was his best friend. Suddenly their relationship dynamic becomes interesting and with this information I become confident in how to manipulate Junho. Before he had seemed adaptable, but now that he had a definite weakness, his love for the elder. I could wreck him, I smile satisfied and kiss Chansung, a deep kiss. We rarely kissed like this unless we were fucking, but I could make an exception for now.

The plane journey leaves me with some things to think about, I had a whole empire to build up in Seoul. I was excited about the prospect of returning home and being in Korea longer than a month. I would stay at home base for a while before I was confident enough to move out of the country. I had people I could trust at our international bases anyway so I had nothing to worry about.

While in first class I enjoy the perks of being able to lie alone in peace, I had asked not to be disturbed for the whole ride to Korea. I wanted to get my beauty rest, but some time into the journey, stranger next to me clears throat obviously to get my attention. I don’t remove the eye cover; I was hoping this would be enough to put off the stranger.

“My sweet and dear little brother” the stranger speaks and without hesitation I remove the cover. The person wasn’t a stranger after all, it was a person that I hadn’t seen in a long time. It was the brother that I had no seen in so long, Im Changjung. Brother? I can barely believe my eyes; it had been so long since I had last seen him. The jewel of my father’s eye, the child he did have in wedlock, the child who was not a sin.

Im Changjung was unlike me on paper, but in reality we shared so much. He had been the person who has lead me on this path, he had inspired me to want more than I had. To want more than my father’s approval, to want more than love. He was the person who had shown me the importance of power. “Did you miss hyung?” I smile and pull him into a hug, the elder laughs in response. “That’s a good reaction, even if you’re cold for everyone else. You should be warm for your hyung”.

We have a brief catch up between the two of us, the elder had been in Canada doing business. The two of us had gotten into the same kind of business, although my precious brother was smarter than me. He had the book smarts provided by his family, but he hadn’t stayed to lead his family’s business into success. Instead the elder had rebelled and run away, he had used his influence to make himself untouchable.

The Im hierarchy had tried to bring back their son by force, they had tried to lock him up and force him into the position of power. Reputation had mattered so much for that family, for the one son that they had put so much effort into, going against them was not tolerated. But they underestimated my brother, they underestimated, how cunning, ruthless and intelligent that he was. It hadn’t taken him long to free himself from the hold of his oppressive parents, and now he was travelling the world being his own boss.

Changjung was strong, but the people around him were strong enough for him to never need to even lift a finger. His power far outweighed the family that he was from, the smile that he wore on his face showed how comfortable he was. He was untouchable and so travelling without his strongest men wasn’t an issue, finding the flight his younger sibling was on just have a catch up. It was something my brother could do without have to worry, his confidence was warranted.

Despite being the legitimate son and thus encouraged not only by his scorned mother but our cold father to reject me. The elder had always shown a desire to get close as we grew up, with mixed up feelings I always rejected the elder’s advances to get closer. It wasn’t until I was in a place of darkness that had control over me, that ate me up and was close to ruining me did I get closer to him. He had saved me from myself, and helped me onto the path that I needed.

“It’s been a while hasn’t it?” he says stroking through my hair, his eyes full of an unwavering fondness. “I missed you” the elder smiles. I smile and lean into a hug, he wouldn’t be here without reason. I know that we have a lot that we need to talk about. “I’m going to need your trust, there is something your brother needs help with” he reveals still not dropping his loving gaze. “We have a battle that we need to fight” he says seriously. I knew for my brother I wouldn’t hesitate to die, he had my loyalty.


	4. Rome

Jinyoung’s POV.

“You look gorgeous” the younger says as he licks and bites at my nipple. A warm feeling in my stomach settles, as he licks, he sucks. His large paw like hands, travel slowly down my back and to the curve of my ass. “You are so stunning hyung!” my young lover returns his finger between my cheeks. His slender fingers find their way to the pucker of my ass, it felt so good. 

 

This was my first night reuniting with Dowoon, it had been a week since I had last seen him. My trip to the Vatican City had been extended and the younger after a surprise wedding, had decided to join me. It had been less than half an hour since we had seen each other and we were already in bed preparing to fuck, I hadn’t been doing any fucking whilst working in the Vatican City so I was a little pent up without Dowoon.

Fortunately, the younger was helping relieve some of that tension, or at least he was trying to. Our moment alone is soon interrupted by a phone call; I do my best to ignore it but it persists. So reaching over to the phone my intension is to switch it off, until I catch the person on the caller ID. It was Hyerin and she had already sent me several texts, according to her it was urgent and that I should answer the phone.

So reluctantly I have to rip myself away from my young and attractive lover and call Hyerin. Dowoon isn’t pleased that our moment had been suddenly interrupted, but I ask for his patience as I take the call. The younger watches on with suspicious eyes as I take the call, Hyerin’s tone of voice leads me to sit up. Her voice sounded urgent, she reveals that she had some news on Paulo and Anastacia and that she needed to see me.

Torn between staying with my lover and going to see Hyerin, it’s not until she tells me about an attack that soon upcoming that I have to be worried. Dowoon was tempting but I needed to go out, he asks to come along. If at this time the worst, he thought I was doing was cheating then I could handle and explain that more than I could what I was planning to do. I explain that I would be back as soon as I could before quickly dress up deliver a soft kiss to Dowoon and tell him that I would call later. 

When I arrive at the address provided to me by Hyerin, I’m a little perplex as to why she wanted us to meet at a skating rink. In fact, for something that could lead to many deaths, you would think we would plan something stealthily where no one was around. As urgent as Hyerin had made it seem over the phone, hear she was on the ice she was with another person. It was a short man, he stood just an inch taller than her. Hyerin holds hands with the stranger, they skate on the ice, neither showing much of an expression. They seemed focused on the form and perfecting their movement, they hold each other’s gazes and somehow move as one person.

The male despite his short height and narrow shoulders, was a very handsome man. He had all of Hyerin’s concentration, she had never looked so focused before. There was something that they shared, when I looked at the both of them, they moved as one, as if they were reading each other’s thoughts. They worked as one beautiful and graceful machine, when it came to describing Hyerin, graceful hadn’t been a word I would have used to describe her, but here she was. She was glowing in the presence of this man, the sight of them it sends little flutters through me.

After the song blasting over the rink changes to something faster, the pair seem to relax. They start skating freely and as they do, Hyerin still takes the lead of the mysterious male as he leads, she chases after him. They looked like a normal, youthful and happy couple, except Hyerin had lived a little too long to be considered young. The same could be said for myself as well, but being around this man seemed to give her youthful glow of which I was envious of.

It had been a very long time since I had felt anything close to heart fluttering. With Dowoon he was someone I liked, someone that I felt comfortable with. It had been almost a decade since I had felt something close to heart fluttering, that feeling of being head over heels in love. The closest I ever felt was lust and genuine affection for people. I honestly missed the feeling, even though the last time I had felt, that relationship had ended terribly.

I don’t know how long I was in my trance thinking back, is when I feel arms wrap around my shoulders. When I snap out of my trance, I spot Hyerin whose had her arms wrapped around my shoulders smiling fondly to me. Whilst behind her, the mystery man has his arms wrapped around her waist, he watches on completely comfortable with this situation. 

“Jinyoungie, you’re here!” Hyerin greets me warmly, she turns to look at Kyungsoo. “He’s fricking handsome isn’t he?” Hyerin turns to check to the man behind. The man nods his head and grins looking up to watch me, he shows no signs of jealousy. Up close the man was even more handsome, although his face was cute, adorable even, but it was juxtaposed to the seriousness in his eyes. He looked like a man with a secret, but what secret was it? Was I being too suspicious?

“Why did you call me? “I ask Hyerin, she had called me out from a comfortable evening in with my lover for this. “This better be important” I warn, much to the amusement of the two others. “Jinyoung, this is Do Kyungsoo my husband” Hyerin introduces him with a proud smile. It surprises, after all these years of knowing each other, Hyerin had been so flirtatious and playful with those she came into distance with but here she was. She was acting like a smitten wife; this wasn’t something I was used to seeing from her. She looked softer and brighter.

“Ok”. I’m blunt, I don’t know if I care for an explanation about their relationship. “Nice to meet you Park Jinyoung” the man greets me; it was like he was familiar with me. Had we met before or had he just heard stories from his wife about me? “This is your first time meeting” Hyerin explains, as if she were reading my mind. “But still my husband is interested in you” Hyerin nudges Kyungsoo who chuckles in reply.

My guard is up; I didn’t like this. It was like they had their own inside joke that I wasn’t in on. “we can discuss that later, but my wife has something she wanted to talk about” Kyungsoo explains turning the attention to Hyerin. I follow his gaze to the cute one in front of me, she smirks and watches me.

“We found him” Hyerin explains that she had found and tracked down Paulo. We had been in Rome for a whole week and until now we had no luck, no one in the drainer had been willing to speak up. They risked less by keeping hush, those who went against the code of hush would go missing inexplicably. So a lot of people were being pressured into silence, it was a great indicator as to how strong Paulo and Anastasia had become. They were feared within the drainer community, but the way things were going I had a feeling it could get worse.

“My smart hubby tracked him down, and he’s still with that wench Anastacia” Hyerin gives me a catch up session. Kyungsoo was someone who could find someone no matter how well they hid, and sensing that we needed his help he came all the way to Rome. Totally suspicious. I try to shrug off that feeling and focus on the job at hand.

That job was to track down Anastacia and Paulo, and to try and stop them from whatever it that was causing Seo Inguk and the Vatican to worry. Yes, the actual Vatican, had their own bone to pick with my old friends. They were being pushed and antagonised into action and that wasn’t a good thing for whoever it was that had been foolish enough to act like that.

Within the drainer community, there were unspoken rules. If you wanted to live a simple life as the drainer, then it was best not to be known of by le Protezioni or the Vatican. If drainers went out of control with their feeding or their violence and called the attention of humans for their actions, then Le Protezioni would go out to wipe out that threat.

Le Protezioni was an organisation that I had been a part of, they were strongest drainers of the world who would kill drainers who threatened the anonymity of the drainers. We were a breed of people who had to survive in the shadows, if we were to be revealed to the general public. There would be shock, fear and anger and those things wouldn’t work out well, because no matter what. The drainer community was outnumbered by humans, and if we were discovered it would lead to our persecution.

That was what happened when people felt threatened, they lashed out to those they felt were their enemies. It was the way of humans, it was their way to survival, they either ran or they fought and le Protezioni was trying to avoid that. Their methods were cold and brutal, they needed to be that way to serve as a warning to the community they essentially ruled over. Most of the time the drainer community rarely stepped out of line, every now and it could be handled by those in their community.

If one drainer was being reckless, drinking more, attacking more and generally causing fear for humans then other drainers would take care of it. It was our version of the neighborhood watch, but for anything more serious. For example, whole villages in rural Africa being experimented on by crazy, callous and idiotic American scientists. Those drainers who were made through science and could not be controlled, they would be disposed of by le Protezioni. As were the small cults in Sweden who just happened to be neo Nazis, who saw the benefit of the stronger white race.

With a 300-year history group which originated from Italy could often be translated into the protectors. Le Protezioni was an organisation which was made a few dozen strong drainers who were based across the world there probably a handful per continent. They were strong creatures who were in charge of ridding the world of l' egoista assassini; the selfish killers. 

No matter what, if Le Protezioni saw you as a risk to human life on a large scale, they would take care of you. Most of the time they were affective, but with so many cults and so many drainers across the world, they were kept busy throughout the year. So they couldn’t always be relied on, and in those times, there was another organisation who took care of drainers.

The Vatican was also a nick name for the organisation that also dealt with the ridding of dangerous drainers. It originated from the holy city itself and it’s methods of killing drainers was different from le Protezioni. Instead of using brute force, because as the organisation was mostly human, it wasn’t an option for them against their strong foes. They used other methods, there were old fashioned methods which got the job done well enough, but was a little bit more difficult to perfect. Exorcisms.

Through Seo Inguk, the Vatican had contacted me for help in capturing Anastacia and Paulo. They knew my connection with the pair and thought that I would be the best person to track down the elusive pair. They had been old friends, but even still. It appeared that they were causing trouble across Europe, with a growing cult the Vatican saw them as a big threat. Not just because of the size of their cult, but because of the ideology that was being encouraged through their leader.

In past interactions Anastacia had always seemed to be a kind and calm woman, yet from what I was hearing. Something had happened to change her, and now she had become a ruthless killer. Although so far everything I had heard, had come from the Vatican and not from a reliable source. So for now we were just wanting to track the pair up and speak to them, before I joined forces with the Vatican for whatever plan they had. I had to be sure.

So for the last week we had tried tracking them down, but all of a sudden thanks to Hyerin’s husband we had found them? There was obviously something that I wasn’t being told, and if I was going to be jumping into this, I needed answers, honest ones.

“What kind of man is he?” I ask letting my suspicions get the better of me. “You can call me a narrator?” Kyungsoo suggests. Hyerin nods her head vigorously in agreement. A narrator? What was he narrating, and how was I involved? This was all suspicious and annoying vague. They had called me out from my peaceful life in Manorala, and now they were being vague and mysterious and all around annoying.

“You know that my wife can read minds right?” Kyungsoo asks. Indeed, I did know that, his wife was a very strong fair. Not only could she heal certain wounds, but she also held the ability to read minds. On a day to day basis it was annoying, but when it came to the big occasions that involved defeating a common enemy, it was especially useful.

“Just like my wife, I have special powers” he explains that these powers allowed him to know things before they happened. My eyebrow is raised as he reveals that he could see the future. “I can’t change the way things happen. Not without causing major repercussions”, he explains. Kyungsoo reveals that he is able to see the future and he can only intervene when he sees that the future is being distorted by others. I assume those others would be people like him who could see the future and tried to change in their favour. How many people around the world were like him, I wonder?

Unable to resist the urge, I ask what he sees happening with our current situation, how it would end up. “Well I’m not one for spoilers, but I can’t have you ending up dead…it might ruin the story” he teases with a knowing look and a grin to boot. I was starting to find Hyerin’s husband an irritating prick, but I was never one for mystery, I liked to hear things head on.

“They’ll be at the Panama hotel tomorrow night. There will be an event being thrown there” Kyungsoo reveals that Anastacia and Paulo would take the hotel hostage. The move would be political, Anastacia was no longer going to be the pacifist that I had known her to be, she had changed. It was hard to believe, she had always been such a kind and warm sported person. It didn’t seem like something she would be capable of, putting other lives in danger.

Unsurprisingly the Vatican wants us to take care of this, they wanted us to do this under the radar. If he took out the leaders, then Le Protezioni would take care of the rest. The problem in this all was how was I going to handle two older vampires who were probably hocked up blood? Hyerin wasn’t much help in combat, and I didn’t expect that Kyungsoo would be.

Hyerin must read my thoughts, as she reveals that I would meet up with Inguk hyung and a few other people at the church. “You know the Vatican has its own methods, so it’s time to learn them and crush you enemy” Hyerin explains. Kyungsoo watches me again with that knowing look in his eyes, I hated that he knew something that I didn’t. I hated being left in the dark, especially when it came to something as important as my future.

“Just focus on the immediate problem at hand, or else hundreds of people will be killed tomorrow and god knows how many after that” Hyerin warns. I sigh reluctant, after all I had promised myself a while ago that I would no longer do this, or get involved in these types of affairs. The supernatural, life or death situations that always caused stress and forced more responsibility onto me. If someone died, then the guilt would always force it’s way into my consciousness, there was so much that I regretted to this day.

“That’s why the Vatican chose you oppa. It’s because you care” Hyerin replies to my doubts despite me not addressing her directly. The younger yelps as I flick her across the forehead for her invasion into my head space. Meanwhile her husband reacts by laughing, he rubs the smaller girl’s forehead. “Ow oppa! I was going to let Kyungsoo show you some of your future, should I not?” Hyerin pouts slightly, before backing away and pushing her husband towards me.

Kyungsoo pats Hyerin on the butt, kissing her forehead before taking her place. Hyerin chuckles before playfully skating off on the floor, she seemed to be giving Kyungsoo and I some time together. “There will be someone you will have to give up for the greater good” Kyungsoo reveals ominously. “Those words won’t make much sense to you, until the day that you have to leave” I don’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t like it.

Reaching for my shoulders, Kyungsoo pulls me down in front of my face, his wide eyes searching mine. “His hands slide to my face, pulling me close to him. Moving quick, the younger leans in and places a kiss on my lips. It’s soft and sensual and locks me into place, my whole entire body freezes and my senses are taken over. I was locked into something; I was seeing this from a point of view.

What was in front of me I had never done before. I was somewhere that I had never been before. I blink and I could see a warm light, it was a natural light. When I look up, I see the soft light flowing through the curtains onto me. A body lays next to me, I hear soft breathing, it wasn’t snoring but the sound of someone in a peaceful slumber, he wasn’t moving and seemed dead to the world.

Without thinking about, I reach over to stroke the hair of the person in front me of me. The back of their hair is a sandy blond mop, carding through the hair, the person hums in response. Sliding slowly back towards me, the other with their soft, slim physique and pert little booty makes their way towards me. I feel a throbbing between my legs, my body responds to the man’s body as it pushes up against me.

My heart flutters, in a way that it hadn’t in so long. I was so intoxicated by the feeling. “Hyung” the voice calls for me, I immediately freeze. The voice was so familiar, it as the one from the sex dreams. He had been the one I had been day dreaming about recently. The intense feeling was there, the one that I had before, but I had mistaken that as adrenaline.

The cloud of the sexual haze, that all I thought that it was, I had mistaken that as the feeling. But right now, looking at the blonde top with the cute ass, my hands had pins and needles. My heart was fluttering and my breath was more shallow, whoever this person was, but I wanted so terribly to see him. But I was also scared, scared that if I turned him around and saw him, that I wouldn’t be happy with him as I was right now.

The blondie reaches for my arm and wraps it around his waist, he pulls me closer. So I reach to wrap my arms around his waist, he hums in reply. The way I felt right now, there no drug or anything that could replicate the feeling. It was a new high, and it felt like I was intoxicated, I think I was going light headed from the feeling of it all.

“Let’s come back here again” the other man says. Where were we? It didn’t feel like we were in Korea, just looking around to what looked like a foreign hotel. I didn’t recognise it, but was I still a wonderer who travelled the world? This obviously wasn’t Dowoon, but was this in my near future? Would I end things soon with Dowoon and I? “We’ll come back right?” the other pushes again, this time I reply without hesitation with a year. I lean in to kiss him down his neck and down his spine. My lover hums in approval before I am suddenly pulled away from it.

Ripped away would be more fitting to describe what it feels like; I had been ripped from the warmth of the moment that I had with my future lover. To the brutal coldness of the ice rink, I can’t help but feel a little heart broken and desperate when I come to my senses. I see Kyungsoo was watching me closely, he looked a bit concerned.

“If you ever want to get that feeling back again, then you need to work well with the Vatican” Kyungsoo warns. I nod my head surprisingly more complaint with his words, just experiencing that brief moment had turned me around. I was on board and wouldn’t need further convincing.

Kyungsoo instructions me to go home and get some sleep. The next day would be a busy day for me, and with that he taps me on the shoulder twice before excusing himself to join his wife. I watch the pair briefly as they grand stand, skating in unison for a routine catching the attention of those who pass by. I still can’t shrug off my envy either.

I decide to take a long walk back to the hotel and try to get my head around everything that was happening. I had a scary fight on my hands the next day, once I had gotten that out of the way I could focus on some other things. Once the fight was over and done with, I had some more questions for Kyungsoo about my future.

In the meantime, I find Yoon Dowoon was in my bed waiting for me when I do get back into the hotel. He was wide awake waiting for me, he was wearing one of his favourite loose fitting jumpers. The ones that exposed his shoulders and collarbones, he was sexy without trying.

“So you’re back?” Dowoon delivers with a cute little pout across his face. Without trying on my end of things, it dissipates into a warm smile, followed by the cutest dumb chuckle that I enjoyed. Dowoon wasn’t someone who could hold a grudge long enough. “I thought about someone when I wanked earlier” the younger teases me.

Taking my shirt off, quickly followed by my trousers. I hastily jump into the bed joining Dowoon. The younger pulls me into his warm embrace, there was never arguing between us, no immature arguments just laughs and smiles and good times all around.

“Did you meet with friends?” the younger questions into my neck murmuring. I hum back in reply, Dowoon pushes on a little further asking who I was with. “A friend, Seo Hyerin” I fell him smile in the back of my back. He relaxes at the sound of the woman’s name, the tension between the two of us melt away as I describe meeting my friend and her husband.

“You should have invited me hyung, I was bored here” Dowoon complains. I could tell that he felt a little hurt by his exclusion, I hum an apology to him. I blame Hyerin claiming that she made it sound like an emergency. That I had been concerned for her safety. “She’s an idiot” I explain to him. Dowoon tells me not to speak about an old friend like that, it wins an approving laugh from me, he was a good natured person.

“Okay, Dowoonie I will behave for you”, I lean my head onto his shoulder before slowly drifting off into sleep. As I drift off to sleep, I can’t help but feel empty and unsatisfied. I could experience a good rest, not the way that I had become accustomed to in Manarola, it was hard to sleep when all my thoughts were whizzing around like this. Tomorrow would be a very long day, I didn’t have a good feeling about how it all turn out, but seems to Dowoon sense that uncertainty and talks to me, he chats as we often did and helps me get to sleep.

The next day, I wake up to the sound of my phone alarm. It was bright, early and Dowoon was already washed and dressed up for the day. The younger was always an early riser, he looked like he was prepared for a day out. He greets me good morning with a kiss, despite my morning breath. He embraces me in a tight hug and for a little while, he doesn’t let go.

“Hyung, let’s go out and do fun things” the younger pouts playfully. He holds a forced smile when I don’t immediately answer. “Let me guess, you have friends to meet?” he doesn’t hide his bitterness at all. “Shuffling to Dowoon, I try to sweet talk him” I would be busy the whole day doing a favour for Inguk hyung. I was minimizing just how much I was telling him, but I do promise him that we would spend the days after together.

Once I get showed and cleaned, I head out to the St Peter’s church which was located near the hotel. It was the church that Inguk was doing his sabbatical at, so for now it would work as our HQ. Dowoon would be doing his own business, going through Rome doing his own business. He was taking pictures and sight-seeing; he would be having lots of fun. I felt bad that I was leaving the younger alone in a foreign city, but I had some things I needed to get done.

Whilst in St Peter’s I meet with Inguk and his troops, we were in the church priest’s home. Seo Inguk introduces me to father Francetti, and their two assistants, Maria and Omar. The two young kids were in their mid-teens, they were quiet, studious and obedient, but according to Inguk. They were some of the best fighters from the Vatican City, not only that but they were trustworthy and worked really well.

They were all dressed pretty pristinely, in black smart shirts, trousers and shoes. Meanwhile Inguk and Father Francetti have their white dog collars that differentiate them. Such a small group that we were in, it felt a little unbelievable that we’d be the people to kill such strong drainers.

Inguk and I chat as he and Mr. Francetti flip through big leather bound books. The Italian priest who looked to be in his late fifties watches me, the priest man obviously doesn’t show me much of a warm welcome and does very little to hide his suspicions of me.

I’m sure a part of the Vatican and a person who fights against drainers. So me being around, it was right for him to be suspicious of me. That didn’t matter right now, we had a lot of work to do. “You ever hear about exorcisms?” Inguk asks, I nod my head. I only knew vaguely.

Exorcism, the religious or spiritual practice of purportedly removing demons or other spiritual beings from a person or an area they are believed to have possessed. Depending on the spiritual beliefs of the exorcist, this may be done by causing the being to swear an oath, performing an ostentatious ceremony, or simply by commanding it to depart in the name of a higher power.

The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions. In Catholic Christianity, exorcisms are performed in the name of Jesus Christ. A distinction is made between a formal exorcism, which can only be conducted by a priest during a baptism or with the permission of a Bishop, and "prayers of deliverance" which can be said by anyone.

By summoning God—specifically the Name of Jesus—as well as members of the Church Triumphant and the Archangel Michael to intervene with the exorcism. It was an intricate event, it needed several people who would have to ensure that everything was done in a specific way. The ceremony had to abide by certain rules to work, especially as what we were doing wasn’t a typical exorcism. 

We weren’t necessarily ridding the world of a demon, no as drainers Anastacia and Paulo were still part human. They didn’t appear to be possessed either, and so we would need a stronger type of magic to work with. We wouldn’t only be sending their spirits away, but we would be sending away a spirit and a body. This was going to be really going to complicated, I needed to get my head down and focus.

Inguk spends a good part of the morning trying to talk me through a ritual, I also get the help of the two helpers Maria and Omar. They had warmed to me pretty quickly unlike their priest, they were showing only signs of being welcoming. There was something that I couldn’t help but mistrust about Father Francetti, the more I became convinced that he wasn’t the person with reason to mistrust me, but I was the one with reason. He was shifty.

“We need to get this right, so many lives depend on us” Inguk tries to embolden us as we finish our preparations. While we do put together our exorcism kit, I ask the elder how he had come to be part of the Vatican City disposal unit. Growing up he had been the only school senior who was committed to the church as I was. I had only wanted to be a priest, but my path had changed. With Inguk hyung, he was more than just a priest, now he was an exorcist? How did he get on that path? The man just shrugs and I begin to think that’s all he’ll say.

Pursing his lips, the elder pouts before revealing that he had held a lot of resentment for drainers since discovering their existence. “Until I discovered that a young dongsaeng of mine, had become the thing that I disliked so much”. He explains that he had been on some business with the Vatican City when he had walked in on me in a Parisian blood bar, needless to say he was shocked. Since finding out that I had turned, he felt that he was responsible for seeing the other side of drainers.

“Drainers like humans, have the good who far outweigh the bad” the elder speaks up and as I watch him, I can tell that he was genuine. “But I will kill the bad ones. That’s my duty” he reveals, and that wasn’t something that I wasn’t completely against. I would be a hypocrite if I said I hadn’t killed harmful drainers; it was unavoidable actions for me.

Midafternoon I excuse myself from the church and head out for Lunch, I would be meeting Dowoon at the hotel that we were staying at. It was an action that I would doing to mollify him, I was honestly hoping that it would curb all the questions I’m sure he would have. I would feed him a story about a missing child who I had once known, and having to search for him. It was a small lie in comparison to what the truth was, if he thought that I was doing a good thing, he was more likely to understand me.

As I make my way through the hotel foyer, I feel myself grabbed by the collar and pulled behind a pillar with a great force. Immediately I could tell that it wasn’t a human, the smell of it wasn’t human, it was the smell of another drainer. The force of which I am shoved onto the pillar, takes the breath out of me, it disorients me briefly.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Paulo snaps at me, his tooth baring. We weren’t completely hidden from the public, but still the elder was cornering me like this. There was no effort in hiding his actions, the look in his eyes was filled with blood lust, he looked like a totally different person. I had seen a people like this before, drainers who drank too much blood were akin to drug addicts, their reasoning and thinking went out of the window in favour of their thirst. It was hard to believe that Paulo, a strong and older drainer like himself had finally succumbed like this.

Under the man’s weight, I don’t even try to move. Instead I focus on trying to hold his gaze, his eyes kept wandering. He was shaking a little bit, side effects of his habit no doubt, when I ask him about Anastacia and if he was here with her his focus returns to me completely. “WHAT THE HELL ARE YU DOING HERE?” the much older man forcefully asks. I had already made the mistake of pushing one of his buttons, when my goal was to calm him down.

Paulo Costa despite his blood shot eyes, was still as handsome and striking as ever. With his olive coloured skin and large trustworthy eyes, his brown curly was a drainer was no longer shoulder length but was cut. His bone structure was actually quite; it had probably caused a lot of people to swoon before him. Paulo stop above me at six foot five, I had known him to be the friendly giant, he was kind and friendly whenever we had met.

In the time I had gotten to know him, I had learnt that he worked involuntarily as Anastasia's right hand man. He was a fiercely loyal friend that had been with Anastacia a few centuries, and through the times they had adapted to the times and lived relatively peacefully. They were well known as drainers who had the reputation for being kind, with that reputation they attracted drainers through that.

“Would you believe me if I said I was coming to see the sights?” I deliver with a charming smile, a charm that the elder had once fallen for in the past. But now looking at him, he looked unamused and unwilling to fall. “Whatever it is that you’re planning, don’t or you’ll die” when I look at him, there was a mixture of anger and something else. It was fear.

Before I can question the elder on what he plans to do, Paulo punches me in the gut. It winds me and makes me fall to the floor, the wind leaves my lungs. As I try and catch my breath, I look up to call after the elder but by then he’s gone. I hadn’t been ready for that interaction, there were no questions that I had prepared either. I had wasted an opportunity to talk the elder down from the ledge, but maybe there would be an opportunity later.

After my run in Paulo, lunch with Dowoon is welcomed. I had been worried but the younger calmed me down a little, especially as he in his own Dowoon manner enthusiastically speaks on his travels for the day. While tracking about for the day, he had taken many fantastic during his day. The younger had a skill for it, he was quite fantastic when it came to his hobby.

Dowoon grins from ear to ear as I ooh and ahh over his fantastically taken pictures, I lean over him to look at his camera. The younger is unable to resist, peppering my face with kisses. The conversation moves on to what I had done for the day so far and how I was getting along with finding the young man. So as usual, I mix the truth in with the lies,

I had woven a story about how Inguk hyung and I with the help of people from the local church, that we had gone around Rome looking for the young boy. “It’s proving more difficult than I want” I tell the younger that I would be out for the rest of the day, but I had wanted to see him once more before I headed out. A smile graces the cute boy’s face as he giggles into my shoulder, and just like that I had lifted his mood.

Wrapping my arms around his shoulder, I lean my head onto his shoulder enjoying the comfort of this moment. “In Berlin… Something big happened” the younger confesses about meeting his father. It had been a very emotional meeting for him, and he still held a lot of bitterness and resentment to his father but he was still partly happy that he had gotten to see his family. That they had reached out to him.

As he speaks it becomes apparent for the umpteenth time, that the younger was much more open than I was. Dowoon was so honest with his feelings, but I could never be honest, not unless I wanted him to be hurt. So for now I smile, listen and respond correctly before reaching and stroking through his hair and trying to sympathise with his situation, which I did.

Following my lunch with Dowoon, I head off to the church and prepare. Hyerin was there to help, she would be very useful after all, she could heal us if we were to get hurt in our mission tonight. Her husband couldn’t join us as he was busy “narrating” making sure the story is told well, whatever that meant I wasn’t sure, Hyerin does very little to clarify. Francetti doesn’t do much approving to Hyerin and I being there, his guard is up again.

“You’re silly to trust such unsavoury characters” the elder man mutters to Inguk. The elder does very little to defend us, but it had very little with him agreeing and more with him not wanting to focus on the work in front of him. “Are we going to put the lives of these young kids at risk like this?”, the man pushes. Hyerin watches on with a grin on her face unfazed by the rudeness of the elder. “It’s our duty” Inguk adds whilst squeezing the shoulder of the young helpers, unlike the father, they seemed level headed for the job. It was quite amusing to see that his worries were unfounded.

That night we head off to the hotel, as instructed by the narrator Kyungsoo who was still too busy to help us out. We take a van that Inguk had loaned for the day and prepare our plan for the night, we had all dressed up for the night as not to call attention to ourselves. We would try and blend into the crowd and when we could corner Anastacia and Paulo we would set our plan into action.

When we get to the hotel, a foreign one, bright and vibrant. It was busy because of a birthday party, I assumed the birthday boy or girl is somehow linked to Anastacia and Paulo. Inguk hyung, Hyerin, Francetti and I are a seated on a back table and try our best to blend in with everything. Inguk was dressed in a tuxedo and looked pretty handsome, he was getting the attention of some the guests for his handsome looks.

Meanwhile I was on the lookout, I was trying to see if Anastacia or Paulo were anywhere to be seen. Impatient and feeling a little bit antsy, I get up to my feet and head over to side of the floor. On the outskirts people would talk more and be more likely to leave some clues as to where their leader was. I keep waking and along the edge and joining me was Inguk hyung, he takes my hand discreetly and we walk as if we were a couple.

“You look very handsome Jinyoungie” the elder whispers in my ears, I grin in reply. The fifteen-year-old me would have died happy to hear the, but after so many years passing, it just made me comfortable and flattered. I watch him closely, suddenly his behaviour tenses up, the elder tries to pull me in one direction without looking obvious but I could tell that something had shaken him up. Taking his hand, he tries to lead me away, but as we head away through the crowds to the exit, we up into a firm body and within in seconds we are quickly knocked out

My head is throbbing when I come to, the darkness disperses and suddenly the light floods into my consciousness. I struggle on the floor; I was behind held down by two drainers. When I try to struggle out of their grips, they hold onto me carefully. When I look up, I am greeted by a face that I hadn’t seen in a long time. The tall slender beautiful blonde, with steely blue eyes and a cheek bones to die for. The natural beauty’s eyes pierce through me, her lips pursed in a disapproving pout.

“Park Jinyoung, it’s been a long time hasn’t it?” the elder walks back and forth in a room that looked like it could be a back office. I had no idea how I had gotten there, last thing I had remembered was being cornered by someone with Inguk hyung, but he wasn’t here. “Where’s-“before I can ask, the elder interrupts me.

“You and your boyfriend can’t stop me and my mission” the elder snaps, her eyes matched her long-time companion. She had blood recently and lots of it, gone was the reasonable, calm and elegant woman I had once known. Replacing her was a raving lunatic, she had a message already pre-rehearsed, it was what she had planned for the future.

Anastacia had suddenly started to resent humans; it had seemed she had run into one too many that had gotten on her wrong side. Now she didn’t have any tolerance for them, it seemed. She wanted to change things, sick and tired of hiding in the showers, she wanted to make a change, and that would start to do.

“We have hidden too long. I will no longer put myself in the shadows just to make those humans comfortable” Anastacia had always hated the hiding even way back when but for her survival she knew that she had to hide. Her goal was to publicise drainers, she had a plan for it all now. “We need to be part of society, we aren’t monster. We are still people” Anastacia shouts at me. What had pushed her to this point.

“Today we will teach humans that our kind cannot be pushed around. I will not let you get in the way of that” she spits her words at me. “Still with Le Protezioni? No? Something else?” the elder doesn’t hide her suspicions. “Whoever you are with doesn’t matter. We will shine a light to our people” she continues on her little rant, it appeared that her goal was to make the drainer community equals. That wasn’t a bad thing, but her method was.

The method of which Anastacia was planning was dangerous. She planned on turning all the humans in the hotel into drainers, and with that she would advertise the existence of drainers to the world. A hotel full of drainers was sure to catch the attention of the world. “We will kill anyone that gets in our way” as Anastacia deliver her warning, Paulo walks in with a battered bruised and tied up Inguk hyung who can only limp in the room.

“We’ll start with your human friend” Paulo shoves Inguk to his knees, and grabs him by the hair. Surprisingly Inguk doesn’t look scared, he just seemed a bit pissed off, which was strange considering how close he was to death. The elder was showing no fear even as Anastacia delivers her promise to kill him, his lack of fear seems to irritate Anastacia, he was poking at her ego simply choosing not to fear her.

Spurred on by her pride, the elder women heads over to the table at the back. She opens the bottom drawer and searches around, as she does I take the opportunity to look at Paulo, he looked bleak. He was here, but I could tell that mentally he wasn’t here. “Humans would fear us because we can outlive them, but that’s not our fault” Anastacia rationalizes as she walks over to Inguk and in her hand was scissors.

Scared I start to struggle again in the grip of the drainers who had been silent up until this point, there was no way I could let them hurt Inguk. My struggle seems to work as a way of appeasing Anastacia, she feeds off of my evident fear, she’s unable to hold back a little laugh enjoying it. From the look in her eyes I could tell that this wasn’t about making drainers and humans equals, she wanted power over humans and drainers. She was greedy, and from the look on Paulo’s face, I could tell he knew.

“I’ll make it quick and painless human!” the elder teases. “Humans have the gift of death. Death is a release” Inguk replies looking up at Anastacia who irritated swipes at Inguk cutting his cheek which causes him to profusely bleed. “DON’T BE SO BRAVE HUMAN!” Anastacia yells in Inguk’s face, he looked pained right now, Anastacia enjoys it, the look of his pain.

Anastacia laughs as she licks the blood of the knife, this was the most deranged I had ever seen her. What had happened to change her this way? “Any last words beautiful Korean man?” Anastacia says as she licks his continuous and gushing wound, Inguk doesn’t flinch he just looks up her and doesn’t back down. “I’ll say my prayers before you kill me. If you would be so gracious” his wording seems to work on Anastasia who licks one more time before backing away and turning from Inguk.

Inguk start his prayers, he starts of his prayer in Korean. Meanwhile Anastasia makes her way over to me, with a cocky smile. “I missed you so much Jinyoung, you still have the opportunity to come to my side. You can change your mind” Anastasia strokes my face fondly but I pull away. A move that seems to irk the elder more than I had expected as she steps away. Inguk continues his prayer and deciding to make my move, I swivel on my knee and kick the two guards from underneath me.

The drainers fall over and without hesitation I get on my feet and with my arms free, I am a better fighter. As they get onto their feet, I am kept busy fighting the two and non-surprisingly the confident Anastacia watches on. I keep my eye on Inguk who was still staying his prayers and was still dangerously close to Anastacia, any wrong move and I would be putting harm to him, so I had to be careful.

Moving quickly, I take out one of the drainers. Kicking high I knock the head of it’s neck before turning to the other. The fight is quick moving, and I’m happy for the fight to last longer. Once I’ve taken care of the first line of drainers, more appear as Anastacia orders, them so I keep fighting. 

The longer everyone was distracted the better our plan could go off, our plan had surprisingly gone the way I had expected. Now I had to continue and make sure everything went accordingly, so I keep fighting with all my might. I had been in worse fights before,

After a few minutes, Inguk finally finishes his incantation and with that I hit the last opposing drainer and snap off his head. “Inguk duck!” I instruct the elder, and he does as I says, Anastacia finally becomes suspicious but before she can move Paulo holds her still. She struggles in his arms. “What the hell are you doing?!” she asks her longtime companion. “I’m saving us both” the man looked conflicted as he holds down his love.

Thankfully he holds her in his arms and does not let go, leaving me to continue. I cut myself with the scissors that Anastasia had dropped, using my blood to make a circle around that man and finishing off the last of Inguk’s incantation. Inguk joins me and seconds later so do the assistants who had been there to prepare this all, missing is Father Francetti. It was all happening and it was thanks to Paulo, I was indebted to him.

The note in my pocket that Paulo had left earlier when he had “threatened” me at the hotel. That note had read as an apology. Paulo had admitted that not only he, but Anastasia had lost their ways. He had only realised when it was too late, he had seen that Anastasia was out of control and now he was going to help us stop her. He was going to give his life; we wouldn’t have been able to do this without him. Without Anastasia's undying faith in her companion, but Paulo was betraying her in favour of his friend.

Once the prayer is finished all that can be heard is Anastasia's cries of betrayal and Paulo’s apologies. I bow my head down to apologise to Paulo out of respect before dropping the blood drenched cross onto the floor by their feet. As I do a hole opens up under their feet which drags the two strong drainers up, sucking them away into a dark vortex. Within seconds it closes up behind leaving only those from the Vatican and I behind.

“Holy shit it worked” Inguk exhales released causing the two young assistants to laugh. I sigh relieved by it, we were done for the day but the rest of the drainers downstairs would be taken care of by le Protezioni. “Oh thank goodness it worked, I had faith in you!” Hyerin cheers as she enters the room. She checks up on all of us, but with little damage done to the assistants, she focuses on healing Inguk.

“Hyung, they’re here” one of the younger assistant reveals to is. Le Protezioni had arrived probably on the word of the narrator. So I breathe a sigh of relief, the blood shed would be kept to a minimum and the events of tonight would work as a cautionary tale to any drainers who tried to cause harm to humans at this scale or more. They would be eliminated.

Hyerin continues on healing and checking for others. She wasn’t built for combat, but she played a big part of our fight. With her mind reading skills, she had also communicated to those of us involved in the exorcism and linked us together. She was how I knew when to move and how many of my foes I had to fight, and minimised the risk for Maria and Omar only allowing them to join in the exorcism when they needed it. She had helped me out in the past, and it appears that help had kept me alive once again.

“I love you too Park Jinyoung” Hyerin pops a kiss onto my forehead, before continuing to heal me. “Little Manarola boy, come out from the shadows” Hyerin suddenly says before turning to the corner of the office. Entering the room was a pale looking and shocked Yoon Dowoon, he looked like he’d had a shock of his life. He was in a suit, had he been a guest here? Had he seen what had happened, just how much had he seen?

“What are you hyung?” Dowoon asks, he can’t focus his eyes not trusting me. He looked like he had seen a monster, the last time I had seen a look like this, was from Inguk hyung. It was a mix of fear and shock, so I figured that he had seen enough, when I try to get up and explain but he backs away.

“Those people. Hyung you snapped off their heads, there’s so much blood and you’re-“Dowoon was dry heaving as he said those words. He looked and watched me, he was disgusted he didn’t see me the same anymore. “What happened to those people?” he asks, all his questions and now I can even think of a way to answer.

“This is why you lie to me?” The younger asks, I try to faultlessly interject but he was already hurt and the look of bitter was apparent. “You’ve never been honest about anything to me, not just this but with EVERYTHING” I can’t complain or comment because it was the truth. I lied to Dowoon, because I didn’t want to get close to him, I didn’t him to become someone that I loved and in turn lost.

“Were you ever going to tell me?” The truth wasn’t something that he wanted to hear. I knew that I would never open up to Dowoon, even in the past with my first love. Opening up wasn’t something that I was capable of, it, and I earnest I wasn’t capable of love either. I could explain what had happened, but was I willing to be responsible after that? Because it would take love for Dowoon to stay by my side, and I couldn’t give Dowoon the love that he deserved.

“I… am going back home… to Busan… to the people who actually love me” Dowoon bitterly says as he slowly gets up. Giving me one last glance that held hope, I don’t speak and let him go. I knew I would only give him false hope and at this point, it wasn’t the right thing to do.

Dowoon swallows hard before stumbling out of the room. I Try to catch my breath, watching someone that I had genuinely cared for and was fond of of leave, it was harder on me than I expected. It means the feelings that I did have to Dowoon were deep, but not deep enough. As he left another chapter of my life ends, I was alone again.

“That was the right thing to do” Hyerin says stroking through my hair to comfort me. I knew in the long run; she was right but I couldn’t swallow the reality as it was. “Come with me” Hyerin offers me a place to stay, an offer that I decline. “Fine, but before you go…Kyungsoo has one more thing he wants you to see” she says mysteriously.

Although I didn’t feel comfortable around Hyerin’s husband, ironically I found him to be too elusive. But he held a power that I was interested in, I wanted to see if there was more that he could show me, I needed to know what or whom I was living for. So Hyerin escorts me home.

We meet head over to a bed and breakfast nearby that the Dos were staying in, the pair had a cute little romantic set up. The room was full of warm colours, soft comfortable furniture and sweet smells. Kyungsoo was on the bed shirtless, he looked like he had been waiting for us.

“Sorry, I couldn’t be there, I had some business that I had to take care of” the younger explains, the look in his eyes makes me think that it’s not food news for me. The man seemed devious, more than he showed. “Come here hyung” Kyungsoo waves me over to join him. Whilst Hyerin heads off into the shower leaving the two of us alone.

Reluctantly I set down on the bed in front Kyungsoo, the way he watched me. It was too fond for a person who was pretty much a stranger to me. Kyungsoo smiles with a grin on his face, he reaches over to stroke my face gently. He was more tactile with me than I was comfort with, but I had a feeling his powers worked best with touch. So if he needed to stick my tongue down his throat to give me another vision of my future, then I would do it.

“The church is where you need to be!” Kyungsoo announces. He laughs at my completely shocked reaction, it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear. I wasn’t against the church, but I Didn’t think that they would accept me. I had a tainted past, but according to Kyungsoo, Inguk hyung would be my key for getting back into the church. Just show your faithfulness to them and the church will accept you, they always will.

Kyungsoo encourages me, the look in his eyes was knowing. Should I listen to him? Trust him and head back onto my path of the church. I assumed that maybe it would be a more peaceful path and would keep me away from the drama that I seemed to always find myself entangled in. No matter how far I had strayed, I still believed and when I thought about it. I could avoid all the trouble if I just followed the path that I had been taken off years ago.

Waiting patiently, Kyungsoo watches me. A grin on his face, he knew my future and he knew where this was headed. I was learning that I enjoyed solitude, and not letting anyone get close to me, I could live happily within the church at least I thought so. However here I was, still waiting to see my day dream man, I was hooked on him. Kyungsoo reaches over to cup my face and he does, I lock into place and a vision takes over.

The vision takes me to what looked like a small dining room, in a cosy looking home. It looked like it was evening, the light were on dimly lighting the modestly decorated home. Quickly looking around, there were no personal pictures, just religious pictures, jewellery and statues. I had a feeling I knew were I was, it felt quite comfortable, like it was home. Was it my home?

Stood in the kitchen searching through the fridge, was a slender male figure, he was in dressed very casually. His skinny jeans highlight his rear, with that he wears a bag hoody and a pair of trainers. The man was so attractive even from behind. His hair was a fluffy brunette mop that was in need of a cut, but for some reason I knew it looked cute on him. 

Just as I take a step forward, I get that warming feeling again. I recognised him, it was my day dream man, I smile unable to resist watching him, the fluttering was back. If all I had to do was wait for however long I had to wait, then I would. I would wait again to feel like this, and I would do whatever was necessary, even if it was trust a man like Do Kyungsoo.


	5. Busan - Mokpo

16 years later…

 

Dowoon's POV

 

In my line of work, you didn’t work a nine to five day. Oh no, that sounded like bliss. Waking up at a normal hour and returning at a favourable hour. Being able to do things when I returned home, instead of just showering and heading back to sleep? Weekends were a gift that I rarely got the chance to take advantage of, those were also work days, sometimes even longer.

Midday into my hard working day I finally get a breather, a moment to myself which I would cherish. The moment in which I wasn’t busy being a director of the sales department of a Fruity Hook, it was a confectionaries company. It had started as a small shop set up by my grandfather, he had travelled aboard and fell in love with sweets and chocolate and so he had returned to Korea to create his own company. With his own recipes, the man became famous for selling Korea the best taste of sweetness.

 

Generations later I was working as a director in the sale department, I was in charging of not only keeping the sales up for Fruit Hook, but we were to keep competition and become an internationally known and appreciated company. I knew from how much we were shipping back and forth from Korea to nations across the world, we were close to meeting those goals. But it wasn’t just the work of myself, no I was fortunately working with dedicated people within the company.

Leading those people sometimes was a challenging job, keeping up moral and encouraging those who work for us to produce better results. However, my approach seemed to work for those who were underneath, because I wasn’t a brash heavy and overbearing like most bosses. I wasn’t someone who was handed the company either, I had been trained up and had shown time after time that my efforts were necessary for the company.

As my father had done previously. I was leading my work force with a kind heart and mind, and luckily I was receiving positive results. Overall I loved my job, I loved being able to contribute to my family’s legacy. The legacy that I was sure that I was doing well to keep alive and thriving.

Very rarely was I questioned by my family, they had for many years now let me get to work. I was my own man and not stuck under the shadow of my father, when he was needed I would call and he would be happy to help. There was no intervening and undermining, and all the fears that I had growing up, they were no longer there.

The fears of my father and mother becoming a burden on me, that they would become try and force themselves into my professional and private life was for nought. When my family promised to cooperate with me, they really did do it. Since then my life has been nothing but a happy one, I had been very lucky. Even though my work kept me busy, with my life I felt some contention. But I do feel a little relief as I head home.

Whilst on my drive back home, the news plays through the car radio. My driver and assistant Lee Inhaeng enjoyed listening to the news to keep his mind distracted. I didn’t mind, as long as he did his job well then it didn’t really matter. The news today was discussing a topic of drainers and their intergration into human society.

It had been five years since the revelation of drainers, their existence was one that had rocked the world. There was fear, panic and anger at the fact that for hundred years, the government had aided in hiding the existence of drainers. The outrage was short lived however when in freakish circumstances, there was a large meteor shower that landed on the earth.

Drainers who had come out of the wood work and had been a source of fear to humans, were there to save many lives. They helped with their strength and their speed and in some circumstances they gave a lease of life to others by turning them. After that event, human saw that not all drainers were threats and since then, they have been slowly accepted into society.

Slowly but surely there had been some changes in attitudes and drainers were now living amongst us publicly. Fruit Hooks had become one of the first few companies who had kept and accepted their drainer employees, standing by them. This move had been genuine on our part, I had encouraged my father to see past his fear and like he had with me see those people for the people they were.

In some cases, drainers had been made and they had never been given the choice to be who they are. They had been forcefully inflicted with an addiction and spent every day trying to deal with it, and in some cases there were some bad and misbehaved drainers. But most of the drainers that had come across over the years had been good, they lived as normal humans, either drinking blood from banks, animal blood or none at all.

Over time I had come to realise that there was nothing fear, that I had over reacted and that there was a place for drainers in society. I had openly supported drainers who still faced a lot of torment and exclusion in society, but I was glad to see that there was some effort for change and there was still some progress in the direction of peace.

On the radio it discussed a drainer/ human conference. It was being held as the leaders of the most powerful countries and those that lead drainers were to meet up and sign a peace treaty. It was really a big move in the right direction, after some conflict between both sides this treaty would lay down some rules to be followed on both sides. It would cut down on the misunderstandings and the deaths that had risen since the revelation. It was a truce, and both sides were to keep their side of the bargain.

“This is good news right boss?” my handsome driver comments. It didn’t hurt having a bit of eye candy, but Inhaeng was also reliable as well as a kind person. Inhaeng was also very loyal, he was also a good companion and honestly he was one of the only people that I could genuinely call a friend. He understood my kind of personality, and didn’t try to push things, but he was still pushy enough to try and bring out my personality.

Years had passed and even though he had showed promise in other areas, he seemed only interested in staying by my side and assisting me. Something that I compensated him highly for, I was grateful to him, and honestly I wanted to keep him around as well.

Fortunately for me, the traffic is clear and we manage to get to my apartment with 20 minutes. It was good, it seemed that everyone was already home in my neighbourhood, I lived in a gated area. By the beach my house had a beautiful view, and was very relaxing place to be. The home was elegantly decorated, all furniture chosen by my mother who I left choose my home and clothing. That was the only place she interfered and because she had good taste I always obliged.

My relationship with my mother had gotten a lot better, but in reality things couldn’t have gotten worse. We only ever had room to build up, and although it took her a while to accept me, more time than my father, she had also come around. Now the only time we ever argued is when she insisted on setting me up with men that she knew of, and it was always someone every month, a date set up for me to attend.

Homosexuality had become more acceptable in society and I had been highlighted over time as an inspiration for others. A person in the position of power had come out, initially it had been as difficult as I had thought it would be. It was full of insults, prejudice and discrimination and I swallowed it all and fought against it with my chin held out. I was proud of myself and the support that I had received in my family.

The world hadn’t turned on its head after my revelation and years later I was in a comfortable position. I was getting on well with work, with my family and even though I wasn’t committed to anyone. I had a lover who would run over to me when I asked him to be by my side. I had expressed with full disclosure that even at the age of 29, I was someone who wasn’t willing to settle down. The only kind of relationship that someone could ever hope for with me was a casual sexual relationship.

Jang Yijeong understood me, he never tried to force me into anything. For the last few months I had finally given into the elder’s charms. Charms that I had tried very long to ignore, after all he worked within the company and anything that I did would be scrutinised. It would be the best for me not to get caught up in anything that could lead to rumours or future trouble.

Luckily Yijeong was very discreet. He worked high up in the company and had gotten there with his own brain and effort and he did not want to risk that by looking like I was getting him ahead because of sexual favours. That wasn’t the case and my father knew that, his family background was impressive hence why my mother was happy to nudge him closer to me. She met up with him for lunches when they thought I didn’t know about it, and I could tell that she was trying to convince him to stay by my side.

However, I had stayed steadfast in my insistence that our relationship was casual and had given the elder enough times to break off our arrangement. The elder had explained that he went to those lunches to appease my parents, he wasn’t promising anything to my mother but he did enjoy spending time with her. I wouldn’t stop them spending time, but sometimes I did find their close relationship to be a bit awkward.

“What are you thinking about?” Yijeong purrs as he sits on my bed. He had let himself into my home and was now sat on my bed. He had chatted with me about his day as I had been showering, the elder knew how to tell a story well. He was charming, funny and confident, he could keep me laughing and was someone who could stress me out.

Once I was done with the shower, I dry up and clean up to join my lover. The man was smaller, shorter with narrow shoulders, but he was handsome, his face with high cheek bones and intense eyes. Those eyes had seduced me many times and it doesn’t take very long for him to get into my pants that night, the man was sympathetic for my day.

As I complain about the meetings that I was stuck in the whole day, the elder strokes through my head. He leans and kisses me down my neck, his small hands are used to squeeze my shoulders. He was getting the knots out of my shoulders, I was relaxing in his arms.

“You’re working so hard, you’re doing so well” the man continues to kiss me, his hands wandering revealing me of any sexual tension. I come to realise that I had needed this a lot today, I worked myself into a stress ball and in becoming overwhelmed with everything, I started to pull back and enjoy things less. Thankfully I was here enjoying the company of my part time lover, and colleague and would leave me refreshed for the next day.

Between Yijeong and I there wasn’t ever time wasted, we got what we needed to get done and never dragged ourselves down in sex with feelings. Not when my primary objective was to reach my climax, there was no point in adding romantic feelings, they complicated things. They made such a simple thing as fucking become something that it didn’t need to be, it was thorny and boring.

That was why for so long I had never attached myself to another man, there were the few dating app or bar hook ups but they were few and far between. There were few men who could be exclusive but also not want extra commitment tied to that, Jang Yijeong was the first. Not only was he not clingy, but he was great in bed, he wasn’t to delicate but he wasn’t rough or crazy in bed. We met each other’s needs and after everything was said and done, there was no clinging.

The next morning is evidence to back that thinking up, by the time I wake up early at 6 am in the morning, my lover has already left. Probably to get home and get ready for work, but even still he never lingered longer than necessary. He had things to do, and so did I.

Once I have showered, dressed and gotten my first coffee of the day I head off to work. I make conversation with Inhaeng, the elder was on top of everything, he had managed to secure me a meeting with an important client within in the next day. Moves like this were what made me want give him a promotion, but surprisingly the few times I’ve offered it he has politely rejected me. According to him, he preferred to be by my side and help.

It wasn’t an ordinary move to make, but I could tell that it was a calculated move. If Inhaeng stayed at my side loyal, then I would be likely to repay him for his loyal. The reason behind it didn’t matter, as long as I had his loyalty then his methods to success wouldn’t matter. Inhaeng parks inside the company’s building parking area, and for a few minutes we chat, I let the elder finish off his latest argument with his girlfriend.

“She’s crazy dude, she wants to marry but not until I ‘m richer. But she doesn’t want me to leave her either, she can’t make up her mind” the elder seemed frustrated but at the same time his eyes lit up as he talks about the woman that he obviously loved. The elder had been with his girlfriend since their college years, but she had different standards and Inhaeng worked hard to meet them. He loved her and although he often got frustrated with her demands, sometimes I envied him.

“Ah well, sorry for chewing your ear off” the elder signals that he was cutting the story short. We both had work, but after work I would nudge him to finish the rest of the story and vent to me. He would be a better worker that way and honestly I enjoyed the gossip, men who said that they didn’t enjoy gossip were the best liars and the best of gossips too.

“Good morning Yoon Dowoon!” a melodic voice greets me, the melodic voice belonging to someone I hadn’t seen in a long while. Park Jaehyung the first love of my best friend was sat at my desk, legs crossed and placed on the desk, he had made himself comfortable. The elder smiles as he greets me, he looked different, his boyish features had matured, he was a handsome.

Jaehyung still held the same style, he was kind of boho chic, he was just a bit more refined in his look. He had grown some facial scruff, a nice little beard that contoured his face and made he him look more manly. “Are you doing gawping at me?” the other asks with a grin on his face. Suddenly I remember that I didn’t like the elder much, he was too blunt for my liking.

“You look different too, the baby fat’s disappeared. The innocence has left your eyes too” he teases, before swivelling my chair once and getting up onto his feet. He managed to get something so childish to look so impressive, that was something that always irked me about the elder. Without trying he seemed to get the desired result, he had never even tried yet he had gotten Younghyun to fall madly for him.

A little irked to have this visit thrown at me without any option to decline, I don’t react well to him showing his face. “What are you doing here?” I ask the elder doing very little to be tactful or hide my suspicions. My reaction doesn’t faze the elder one bit, despite being in the office of a director of a well known company, he wasn’t intimidated at all. To him I was just the younger friend of his ex, and he addressed me as so.

“There’s something we need to talk about” the elder explains, but I tell him that it was a bad time. “Maybe we could do it later” I wouldn’t be in a rush, but I didn’t appreciate this invasion. “This can’t wait” the tone of his voice was what stops me from asking him to leave again. Very rarely had I known the elder to speak so seriously, but here he was. The look in his eyes looked like he wasn’t backing down, I was ready to cuss him in defence of Younghyun, after all he was married and shouldn’t be interested in my precious best friend, which is why I suspected he was here.

“A few years ago, I met someone who told me to pass this on” Jaehyung explains that a few years ago that he was approached by a stranger years ago. “He had told me that some things had would happen”, and very quickly I’m confused but I let the elder continue. “It was like he saw the truth of the future” he explains that this guy that he had met had powers.

Unable to hold back the scoff at the elder, did he really want me to believe this? What kind of powers was he talking about? “The kind that go beyond human imagination”, there is more to the world than just what we see, there are creatures out there that aren’t well what humans would call normal. “I don’t just mean drainers, they are more out there” the way he spoke about this all, it was as if he wasn’t a human himself.

It had been a while since I had last witnessed something that that supported what Jaehyung had to say. Seeing those people, those drainers disappear off into nothingness, it was something that I could not deny. Although it had taken years for me to get my head around it all, that had been the incident that jump started the end of my relationship with someone who I cared about. The one that got away, or more the one I pushed away.

“A few years ago, some shit went down and this dude helped me out” Jaehyung reveals that he had coincidentally met with a man. “When me and my people were close to being killed, he was there to save us” I didn’t really understand where he was going with this. What did it have to do with me? After all we were just acquaintances, we knew each other through my best friend and his ex, but we had never really been that close.

In fact, at some point there had been a little bit of unspoken tension between the two of us. The elder seemed not to trust the bond that Younghyun and I had, he had read more into it than there was. With the mistrust between us, I couldn’t understand why he was here and what he wanted to do with me, but here I was. Listening to him speak.

“I’m a fair” the man explains that his kind were similar to the fairies which we heard in childhood stories. They were obviously human sized and a great part of their population only had the powers to heal or to evade attacks. They weren’t an offensive kind of supernatural creature and because of this they tended to be a more peaceful kind of creature, but in the past they have had scrapes with different types of other worldly creatures.

“This man saved my whole family, and in return he asked me to come and see you on this day and pass you on this message” me? I frown confused, why? Why had this mysterious man needed to pass on this message, couldn’t he speak to me directly? Jaehyung doesn’t have the answer to that question, he simply just shrugs in reply. He didn’t know the reason behind it, but he only knew the message to pass on.

“You must return to Park Jinyoung” I flinch as the name of my ex leaves his mouth, how did he even know about Jinyoung? Had Younghyun told him? What did it even matter, why did he want me to return to me. Before I get the chance to even ask that question, I’m interrupted by my father.

“Son, what are you-?” the man walks in with a semi stern look on his face. I had to be to a meeting a few minutes ago, maybe he was coming to tell me off for being tardy, but soon any of that melts away at the sight of Jaehyung who quickly introduces himself to my father.

“Oh a friend?” my father asks interested, “an acquaintance” I correct my father, the distinction which makes Jaehyung smirk. “sorry Dowoonie, I didn’t know that you would be busy, but we can meet later” Jaehyung excuses himself first leaving me with many questions to ask him, but with the promise of meeting him later I would be certain to wring them out of the rude and disruptive elder.

“is he a friend of yours or?” the elder asks with a raised eyebrow and a grin on his face. Amazing, that look on his face was genuine. He was genuinely a man who was interested in his son’s relationship. Time had passed and the disapproval had melted form his face slowly and surely, and acceptance had made its way onto my face.

When I had returned from Italy all those years back, my father had welcomed as best as he could. Yun Jong Seok had tried his best to accept me as the person that I was. My parents couldn’t do without me, not just so that I could take over the company, but because they missed their child. At that time, I didn’t believe it, I was too angry and bitter to even see how hurt my family actually was with me leaving them.

They didn’t hate me for who I was, no sometimes hate can be mistaken for fear. They feared the truth about who I was, because they knew how hard it would be for those to accept me. They knew that I would have a hard time, I would be mistreated, and vilified and they hoped that they could avoid that. My parents worried about me and how I would survive in such a judgemental and set society.

However, losing me had been the move that had led my parents into making a choice, either shielding me their son or having me in their lives. Thankfully they put their pride aside and chose the latter, and when I had returned they had stopped pushing me along their path. I was allowed freedom to choose my future path, it had ironically lead me down the path that my parents had set up for me. I was now a director in their company and working my way up the ladder, to take over the whole company.

Meanwhile in my personal and romantic life, my mother was intent on setting me with the suitable candidate Jang Yijeong. My father on the other hand was more relaxed, he wanted the best for me and that meant whoever I was happy with, then he would be happy with too. The elder had never tried to push me to anyone, instead he just focused on helping me and advising me when needed. Our relationship had gotten much better.

That day after my meeting with the board, one which I pressured to get more results, which I was confident I would deliver on. The meeting is long and boring but thankfully afterwards I get to head out to a lunch. It was a personal one that had been forcefully set into my diary by one of my best friends. Bae Yoobin who I was once set to marry and I over the years had become close as friends instead. She was a mother of one now, the spoilt and happy wife, with a husband who adored her.

Looking at her made me jealous, I was jealous of the life she had with a partner that she loved and respected. There had been years of anger and angst between Yoobin and I, she felt bitter and resentful that I rejected her. Even with the approval of my parents, she was still determined, still under the impression that she could get rid of my gay. That she could conquer me and win my heart, and so for a while I spent dodging and ducking her.

With my busy work schedule and her busy life as a house wife and mother, we rarely got to meet up. So she had taken it upon herself to put in lunch dates for the two of us which tended to happen bi weekly, and then we would catch up. I was dead honest with her and she was honest with me and I could talk to her about anything and receive the truth in turn. So when I explain about bumping into Jaehyung and him bringing up my ex, Yoobin doesn’t waste her time to lecture me.

“It’s a shame that you’ve always seemed stuck. Since you returned to Korea” she explains that once she had gotten past her feelings for me, that she started to worry about me. “You don’t open up to any one and you can’t let a failed love do that to you” the other tries to convince me to put myself out there and take dating seriously, to give Yijeong seriously. I smile when I think about just how much she sounded like my mother. “Yoon Dowoon you’re a person who deserves to be loved” my old friend says as she smushes my cheeks. “Everyone deserves love” she says confidently.

Over the years I had grown pessimistic to that kind of thinking, it was hard to feel differently about love. Not when it had made me stumble in all my confidence and drained me of all my energy, Instead I was satisfied with the life that I was living and when I return home that day after a long night of working, I return to the lover who understood the simplicity of my life that I craved. He didn’t ask and I never told and we were comfortable in our plush little grown up bubble, I was content with that.

That night I fall asleep in the arms of older lover, his arms snap their way around my shoulders and I didn’t mind him staying. I knew that he would be gone before I woke up, because I had found a person who wasn’t complicated. I couldn’t ask for anyone better than him, or at least that’s what I try and tell myself before I drop off to sleep.

When I wake up, I feel the weight of my short lived meeting with Jaehyung weigh me down. Due to my busy schedule, I was unable to meet the elder again and continue our conversation. But I do call into work and explain that I would be at work in the afternoon, that would allow me to talk to the elder and finally get the answers that I wanted from him and if I needed to, do some more thinking about whatever it is he was he needed to tell me.

Since the elder had found my work building the day before, I decided to meet him at a coffee shop nearby. Jaehyung had taken well to busan enjoying the seaside, whatever he had to tell me seemed to fall in the back burner to raving about my native city. He raves and rants about the food he has tried, until impatient with the elder I ask him to explain what he had told me the day before, why he was so interested in Jinyoung.

“You have to go to Mokpo and meet Park Jinyoung” the man doesn’t suggest, he seems to half order, half encourage. “You need to be with him” he is a bit more forceful this time, the way he asks would have me mistaken that his fate rested on it. It only makes me suspicious and less willing to hear him out, not until I can get some answers for myself.

“Why do you care?” I snap and ask the man, my tone catches the attention of a few people at the tables next to us, but I didn’t care. Right now the elder had bought up my first love and was asking me to return to him, this was something I had wanted to do countless but been unable to. So if I wasn’t able to, what made him think that I would do it for him, why did he care so much?

“Because….” the elder pauses, he looks like he’s thinking over whether to tell me the whole truth or not. “More people will be happy…” he says vaguely which grates at my nerves. “You have missed Jinyoung haven’t you? The man asks suddenly. “Just think about it. Younghyun told me how much you cared about it. If you do it then call me when you get to Mokpo” the man quickly finishes of our conversation before excusing himself. He had to return home to Mokpo to take care of his wife, apparently she was a little under the weather, it was surprising that he was here in the first place

Following the meeting with Jaehyung I make the decision to return to work, thinking that it would serve as a perfect distraction to what had gone down, but instead I find myself struggling to concentrate. Jaehyung’s words and suggestions were all things that I had thought to do, but him returning and telling me to do it, it made me wonder if there was something urgent about it all. What was going on with Jinyoung?

During a brief break I decide to call up my very best friend and the person I trusted the most. Fortunately, Younghyun is available to speak to, he listens as I tell him that Jaehyung was here and had visited me. The elder doesn’t really sound surprised to hear this which leads me to believe that his ex-had consulted with him before making his way to me and screw with me.

“Hyung…” I hesitate before asking but Younghyun encourages me to answer the question. “Do you regret letting go of your first love?” I ask, when they had first broken up over a decade ago, I knew that Younghyun had regrets, but I wondered if after all this time they still lingered.

“No” he sounded so sure of himself. “But that’s because I found another love in the process” the man clarifies. “but you. Hasn’t it been 14 years and you’re still alone?” the question was blunt, without tact or shielding me, he was asking it to me this way to make me think about it more. “If you were happy and alone I could deal with that, but you know that you’re not happy” my heart drops. No matter how hard I tried to act as if it was not the truth, in the end my best friend had seen through my façade.

“You’ve held onto this regret for leaving Park Jinyoung for so long and I’m not saying get back with him but at least try to talk to him and resolve it” the elder explains that the reason it was easier for him to get over Jaehyung was the fact they talk. They talked and talked it out and had the arguments that they needed to clear things up. “Just the way Yoobin had to hear from you to get over you, you need to talk to Jinyoung” the man encourages me to go and face something that had obviously been holding me back.

Sixteen years had passed and I hadn’t resolved my biggest heart break, I had always put it off. Never had I faced it head on, so when I get back to work I instruct Inhaeng to go to my home and to pack me a bag. He agrees to coming with me and to driving me Mokpo and I plan to head off that night, but before I do. I have to explain my disappearance to my father.

“You’re going to Mokpo for a few days?” the elder is perplexed. “Do we have business in Mokpo?” the elder asks. Although we did have a factory in Mokpo, I had no official business there. No I confess to my father that I would be going to Mokpo to meet up with Park Jinyoung. The name seems to unsettle my father a little, the elder had obviously done his digging into the elder. “Before I looked into his age and it was a little suspicious, but now with the way of the world… could he be?” my father suspected that Jinyoung was in fact a drainer and he was right.

“Yes. But I know he is a good man” I had always known that, ever since I met Park Jinyoung I had known him to have a good heart, despite him being distant. His good heart was the reason I had stayed around, and if he had ever just once begged and asked for me to stay once, I would have probably had stayed by his side, but he didn’t/

“Alright then, travel well” the older man hugs me and encourages me not to come back with less than what I wanted. “You’re my son, you can get whatever and whoever you want. I believe in you” The elder cheers me on and with that I leave Busan in a happier and light mood. Even if I failed in whatever I was planning to do, I had the family support to console me.

Halfway on my journey to Mokpo, I get a call from Park Jaehyung. “You’re on your way to Mokpo right?” the elder had some how mysteriously guessed I was on my way. “Dude, the guy I was telling you about said he knew” he explains, but the explanation leaves me feeling a bit creeped out and uncomfortable. Who was this stranger who knew so much about me?

Jaehyung says that he would be busy for the next few days, but he gives me the details as to where Jinyoung was now and what he was doing. He was a police officer who was in a happy relationship with Choi Youngjae. “But don’t let that put you off, according to my dude. You till have a chance” Jaehyung blindly encourages me to break up a couple without a second thought.

I didn’t know who Choi Youngjae was but if I were him, I don’t think I would be happy to know that I was being conspired against. But I wasn’t Choi Youngjae, I was the man who loved the man he was with. Today wasn’t the first time I had heard of Choi Youngjae, over the years I had kept tabs on Park Jinyoung and only recently did he start dating the man known as Choi Youngjae. Over time I had become curious about the man who had pulled Jinyoung out of priesthood, and took him from Seoul and implanted him in Mokpo. I wanted to see him up close, to find out what was so special about this man, but up until this point fear had always stopped me. But not anymore.

When I reach Mokpo it’s night time, so I make the plan to get myself some sleep. I would stay in a hotel in the city area and travel to the suburb area where Jinyoung and his lover lived, I was nervous but excited. If my feelings were still as strong as they had been years ago, I expected myself to not back down, and that I wouldn’t be leaving without Park Jinyoung. Tomorrow would definitely be a busy day.

The next morning, I start off my morning at a coffee shop which with the cringe worthy name Happy Bean. It was a café which I quickly find out from the warm and friendly reception, that the person serving me my coffee was also the owner. He had taken over the business from his uncle and had been trying to keep his uncle’s legacy going, within in five minutes of talking to Im Changkyun, I gain a very favourable opinion of him.

Thankfully he’s kind enough to breakdown the setup of the town and how to get around, his directions lead me not only to the local police station, but also to the local primary school. “You here to visit some friends, or to report the school?” the man jokes. The man was warm and friendly but not perky, the distinction made him someone who I was willing to speak to.

Within the company of Im Changkyun time just flies by and soon we get well acquainted. The man was a few years younger than me but he had a wife a two precious children, a young eleven-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son. He had been married to the mother of his children nearly ten years, he discusses what he planned to do for their first decade together. He was planning romantic trip to Paris, their children would stay with relatives and he would surprise his wife with a trip abroad. It was sweet and thoughtful.

Listening to the man’s family stories get me distracted for a good part of the morning, it’s not until the man begins changing breakfast menus to lunch ones do I realised that I had wasted my morning. Thanking the man for his company, I excuse myself and head out catch a cab.

I had sent Inhaeng home to hold the fort late last night, and so I would be getting around town using taxis or walking around. Whilst I wait for a taxi, I hear a strange cluttering of bins which is followed by howling. At first I think I might be hearing things, but it persists enough to pique my interest. I follow the sound of the howling into an alleyway behind the coffee shop and am shocked to find the sight behind.

Before my eyes I spot two adolescent children, a girl and boy who were pushing and shoving each other. It starts off aggressive and just manifests into something that was beyond my imagination, as the younger male pushes the older female the female backs up and growls before transforming in front of my eyes. From a human into a what look like a wolf, my jaw drops at what I witness, this was the second time in my life something so shocking has occurred in front of me like this.

Fear immediately forces me to hide before a brick wall out of sight. “Sis are you crazy?” the male child calls out to the female who was now a light brown and majestic looking wolf. It was both elegant and frightening in one go, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing in front of me. Jaehyung had asked me to come to Mokpo to meet with the man who could see the future, now there were these wolf children and humans?

“Noona, stop it!” the younger male pleads for the young female. The female wolf growls repeatedly as the younger boy desperately pleads, until the boy eventually breaks down into tears. Every now and then I peak to see that the wolf girl wasn’t attacking, more so she was in a threatening stance. My heart beats out its chest, this was all intense and I was worried where this would lead, I was honestly scared.

“Im Ji-eun are you out of your mind!” a female voice calls out, when I peek out I spot an older woman who looked in her late twenties or late thirties. The woman with brown hair watches me, the look on her face was that of a stern and annoyed person, not a shocked person. Surely this person should be shocked, but instead she was berating the young woman. “Change back this instant Im Ji-Eun!” the woman scolds. Without hesitation, the wolf girl transforms back into her human form.

All of her glorious fur disappears and her frame becomes smaller, I turn away immediately still shocked by it all. I was still trying to process what I had just seen, had I really just seen children transform into wolves? I had only just processed the thought that there were drainers in the world, now I had to accept that there were fairs, wolves and whatever else in the world?

The lecture from the woman continues on as they enter the back of the building, leaving me to try and sneak off away. Well at least I try to attempt to, but as I turn around the corner to leave I bump into what feels like a flesh brick wall. When I open my eyes I spot Im Changkyun, the owner of the coffee shop. The man that I had spent the morning with, all the warmth that I had seen earlier on was left from his face.

“We need to talk” the man reaches for my arm and drags me back into the coffee shop. Into the back of the coffee shop, sat at the front booth away from others, we talk. “I know what you saw was pretty shocking” he calmly explains that things were different. “The general public knows all about drainers now, but there is so much more. More that even I don’t know of” the man explains, that he and his family were part of a wolf pack, a wolf pack that had for many years protected Mokpo.

“It must be startling I know” but he explains that he is just a father who is taking care of his family, he seemed genuine and when I look at him I could tell that I wasn’t scared of him. “You can keep a secret right?” the man asks, after some brief thinking, I just nod my head. There were things that I couldn’t and wouldn’t be able to understand, I didn’t need to even complicate things for myself.

There is a brief silence of understanding between us. “Shit your kids a wolf dude” I let out unable to resist, causing Changkyun to laugh and soon there was a comfort in the air and we begin to talk like old friends again.

“Oh Im Changkyun, my best friend!” a man announces as he walks through the room, getting the attention of Changkyun. He grins and greets he best friend with a high five. “Do you even work?” he teases the man approaching us with a coffee in his hand. He was someone that I recognised immediately, someone I had seen in many pictures, sent to me by private investigators.

The man was Choi Youngjae, he was a average height, average weight and average looking man. With several moles spotted across his face, on his eyelid and on his face. The man in person left the same kind of boring impression on me, he didn’t show me anything that felt out of the ordinary. When Changkyun introduces us, I get the impression that Choi Youngjae was a warm and kind person. But it irks me, I had been warm too, why hadn’t I been enough?

Bitter, jealous and twisted. I have to do everything in my power not to openly lament the man in front of me. It would be bizarre to him to be berated by a stranger, but it was what I wanted to do. Angry and jealous I wanted him to give me back my first love, to give me the man who I had been unable to get over, despite sixteen years having passed I still felt so passionately about him. It was evident in how hard I was trying not to make a scene and do something foolish.

Uncomfortable around my love rival, I excuse myself from the presence of him and his best friend. I needed to go out and had needed to do so a while ago, I had gotten caught up with various occurrences, but I was on a mission and I wouldn’t leave here without anyone that I wanted. So I call for another taxi promising double pay if they were to get there with the next two minutes, that incentive works and I quickly start off to the local police station, it was the place my first love worked.

Park Jinyoung was now a detective who was highly ranking within the force, he had worked his way up the ladder and continued to do so with a lot of hard work. He was intelligent, bright and strong, all traits that had lead him to incline up the rankings quickly. I had been updated on his progress, on his wins, and his loses within his career.

The man was in charge of training up a new detective in the force, detective Park Sunyoung who with her family connections was being trained up to one day be in charge of the force. Jinyoung was a wonderful teacher and from the updates I was receiving, doing his training with Park Sunyoung would ensure that his rank would rise.

When I get to the police station, I ask where Jinyoung was and am directed to a nearby in house gym. Supposedly he was in combat training with his junior Sunyoung, I was surprised that I was so easily directed to where he was, but mentioning that I was an old friend from abroad seems to win understanding. Plus, the pat down I get before I head there makes me a non-threat for the two of them.

Finding Jinyoung isn’t hard at all, as promised he was in gym with his colleague and they had tangled up limbs. His legs were wrapped around the pretty young lady’s waist, his strong muscular arms wrap around her neck. The tanned petite and pretty woman who I assumed was Park Sunyoung, was in his grasp trying to fight him off.

Their closeness, I feel a twinge of jealousy. They may be combat training, but I never liked anyone touching Jinyoung, all these years later I still felt the same way, I hated it. He was mine, that’s how I felt when I looked at him. He was mine and I was foolish to let him go, to not understand him and now he was in someone else’s arms. He was in the undeserving arms of Choi Youngjae, but now I was here, I was here to take him back.

 

Now wasn’t the best time, talking to Jinyoung. I couldn’t do it now. I had to meet up with the man that Jaehyung had talked about, I would go and find the elder and ask where this man was. To win my man back, I needed to be sure of everything, I wasn’t going to take any chances. So before I leave, I turn quickly and leave rapidly making my way out of the station.

On my way out I take a call with Younghyun, he had called up to check on me. The elder was happy to hear that I had gone to Mokpo to meet with Jinyoung, but he was curious about what I was going to do. “What if he’s with someone?” the elder asks, he seemed to have thought of somethings overnight. Maybe he regretted encouraging me, but I wasn’t going to let that deflate me.

“Park Jinyoung is someone who belongs to me” I tell Younghyun which gains a laugh from him. “I love it when you’re like this” the elder teases. “Shit, then Park Jinyoung doesn’t know what’s coming to him” the man encourages me to do well. “Don’t do something that you will regret okay?” ever the believer in karma, Younghyun didn’t want me to do something that could come back to bite me in the ass. He was a good guy; he was the best guy.

However, I was determined to win Jinyoung back, I wasn’t leaving without him. So once my call with Younghyun is done, I call up Jaehyung and get him to arrange a meeting between the future reader and I. No matter what it took, from this stranger I would get the truth. Why he had told Jaehyung to bring me back, why I needed to be back and how I could get Jinyoung back. There were many questions to ask, so I was going to wait for them.

That night I head back to the coffee shop, Changkyun and his family weren’t here. Instead there was a few new employees who there serving tables and keeping house. I had decided to keep myself hidden in the corner waiting for the future teller, I keep looking at the front door for him to enter that I don’t even notice his entrance. So when the man announces his arrival, I’m sent jump up from my chair.

Laughing ensues in reaction as I land on the floor, I was immediately flushed with embarrassment. When I look up, I spot a handsome male with a mischievous grin worn across his face. He wasn’t there before I turned to look at the door, it was like he had popped out of nowhere, like it was magic…” Dowoon, I’m glad you made it” the man greets me, he knew my name? “I have lots to tell you, listen carefully if you want your precious Park Jinyoung back” the man teases almost.

So this was him, this was the magic man that Jaehyung had talked about, the one who could read futures. He was short, a little chunky, but handsome, he was younger than I had expected. The man holds my gaze, despite the fact that we were strangers, he wasn’t avoiding my gaze, in fact he was watching me like he was familiar with me, like he knew something that I didn’t and he seemed to be lighthearted about it.

“Should we start now?” the man reaches over for my hand, I assume it’s to help me up so I give him my hand expecting to be pulled up. Except the minute I touch his hand it’s like I’m locked into a standing position, my joints lock up and my vision goes briefly, before there is a scene that replaces it. No longer could I see the busy coffee shop and its customers, I was somewhere, on a large white yacht which appeared to be floating on a large body of water. The water was a mesmerizing deep blue, it was a little breath taking and takes me a while to register it all.

“Awesome doesn’t even come close to describing it right?” a male voice speaks; I knew that voice. Deep, silky, smooth. I turn in the direction of where it came from and coming from below deck was Park Jinyoung dressed in nothing but a pair of short shorts that stop at his thighs, his skin was milky and his eyes sparkled. It was beautiful sight to behold, it wasn’t a memory we had shared before, this was something that felt new.

Jinyoung holds that twinkle as he looks in my direction, he smiles and raves about this trip. “Your dad went overboard, but this is freaking amazing” the man says before joining me, he was sat next to me in the flesh. It felt real, when he strokes my arm it felt real, when he nuzzles into my neck it felt real and flitters I get when he kisses me on the lips, it all felt so real.

Like old times the kiss is sweet, passionate and chaste. When I get into the swing of things again, cupping the man’s face, when I was the happiest that I have felt in sixteen years it’s all so quickly ripped away. I’m pulled from my beautiful paradise with Park Jinyoung, and I’m left flat on my ass inside of the café in Mokpo. Above me Do Kyungsoo watches me, a look of intrigue across his face, he was watching my reaction carefully before breaking back into that mischievous and sometimes dislikable smile.

“What you saw was is your future. If you just do as I say then you will get it” the man explains that he had wanted to show me that to motivate me. “It won’t be an easy path, but if you follow my words, you will have him back and better yet. You’ll win his heart this time round. Isn’t that what you always wanted?” it’s true, sixteen years ago I had wanted nothing more than for Jinyoung to love me. If this man could help me do that, then I would listen to what he had to say.

A/N. Hey guys! So… that was the last chapter of this prequel, it kind of came out of nowhere? But as I was writing the earlier chapters it became super apparent to me that a chapter like that was necessary.

So dudes and dudettes, get ready for the next fic and the final arc. I’ve already been writing it and It’s taking its shape but whoo lord there is so much to do. Wish me luck and in the meantime, here’s the link for that fic called “Destined To…”


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